Forging a New Pathway: Frameworks for Middle-Class Retirement Security in 21st Century America

Executive Summary

The traditional model of retirement in the United States, predicated on a combination of Social Security and individual savings through vehicles like 401(k)s and Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs), is failing the American middle class. Decades of rising living costs, stagnant real wages, escalating healthcare expenditures, and persistent inflation have exposed the structural inadequacies of a system that has progressively shifted the burdens of investment, inflation, and longevity risk from institutions onto individuals. The result is a looming retirement crisis, characterized by insufficient savings, widening wealth disparities, and profound financial insecurity for a majority of working families. This report provides an exhaustive analysis of this crisis and evaluates a spectrum of new frameworks and policies designed to create a realistic pathway to a secure retirement.

The central thesis of this report is that the U.S. retirement system’s over-reliance on a voluntary, individualistic, defined-contribution model has created a crisis of insecurity that cannot be solved by incremental adjustments alone. The analysis is structured in five parts. Section I diagnoses the foundational problems, tracing the systemic shift from collective security to individual risk and detailing the structural barriers and macroeconomic pressures that undermine the 401(k)/IRA model. Section II examines “evolutionary” reforms that seek to improve the existing private savings architecture, including state-led Auto-IRA programs, Universal Savings Accounts (USAs), and the modernization of employer-sponsored plans. Section III explores more “foundational” reconstructions of the public social insurance system, focusing on proposals to expand Social Security and the novel concept of a U.S. Social Wealth Fund. Section IV provides a comparative analysis of highly-regarded international models from Australia and the Netherlands, extracting key lessons regarding the power of mandates and collective risk-pooling.

Finally, Section V synthesizes these findings to propose a comprehensive, multi-pillar framework for the United States. This report concludes that no single policy can address the multifaceted nature of the retirement crisis. Instead, a resilient and equitable system requires a diversified approach that balances universal access, shared risk, and income adequacy. The recommended framework includes: 1) A strengthened Social Security system to provide a robust, universal income floor; 2) A federally mandated, portable, and preserved savings system, such as an enhanced Auto-IRA, to ensure universal participation in supplemental savings; and 3) An improved voluntary system that incentivizes risk-reducing features like lifetime income options. This integrated framework offers a viable pathway to rebuild the American retirement compact for the 21st century.

Section I: The Unraveling of the American Retirement Compact

The foundation of middle-class retirement security in the United States has eroded over the past half-century. What was once a three-legged stool supported by employer pensions, personal savings, and Social Security has become dangerously imbalanced. The near-disappearance of traditional pensions has placed an unsustainable weight on individual defined-contribution accounts, which were never designed to serve as the primary vehicle for retirement accumulation. This section establishes the foundational problems of the current U.S. retirement landscape, arguing that the shift from a collective, risk-pooled system to an individualistic one has left the middle class dangerously exposed to systemic risks and macroeconomic pressures they are ill-equipped to manage. An analysis of the system’s core features—its reliance on employer sponsorship, which creates coverage gaps, and its regressive tax incentives—reveals that the current retirement crisis is not an accident but a predictable outcome of a framework fundamentally misaligned with the economic realities of the modern middle class.

1.1 From Collective Security to Individual Risk: The Systemic Shift

The contemporary retirement crisis is rooted in a fundamental restructuring of the American retirement system that began decades ago: the transition from employer-funded Defined-Benefit (DB) pensions to employee-funded Defined-Contribution (DC) plans, most notably the 401(k).¹ This was not merely a change in financial products but a profound transfer of risk. Under a traditional DB plan, the employer bears the investment risk (the responsibility to ensure assets grow sufficiently to cover promised benefits), the inflation risk (the risk that returns will not outpace rising costs), and the longevity risk (the risk that retirees will live longer than expected, requiring more payouts).³ The shift to DC plans transferred all three of these substantial risks from institutions to individuals, who are far less equipped to manage them.¹

The 401(k) itself was, as the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) notes, an “accident of history”.¹ It originated from an obscure provision in the Internal Revenue Code of 1978 and was never intended by Congress to replace the nation’s primary pension system. Its subsequent proliferation was driven by employers seeking to reduce costs and liabilities, not by a coherent policy vision to improve retirement security. As a result, the 401(k) is “poorly designed for this role,” lacking the inherent risk-pooling and professional management features of DB plans.¹

This systemic shift has had dire consequences. Aggregate retirement wealth has failed to keep pace with the needs of an aging population and the increased risks individuals now bear.⁴ Pooled pensions are inherently more efficient; they benefit from economies of scale in asset management and the pooling of longevity risk, meaning a dollar saved in a DB plan generates more secure retirement income than a dollar saved in a DC plan.⁴ To compensate for this loss of efficiency, individuals in a DC system need to save significantly more, a burden the system has failed to help them meet. The result is a retirement landscape where even diligent savers face profound uncertainty about whether their accumulated assets will be sufficient to last a lifetime.

1.2 Structural Barriers to Saving in the 401(k)/IRA Model

Beyond the transfer of risk, the 401(k)/IRA model is beset by structural design flaws that systematically disadvantage middle- and lower-income workers, creating significant barriers to adequate saving.

The Coverage Gap

The most significant flaw is the system’s dependence on voluntary employer sponsorship, which creates a vast and inequitable “coverage gap”.⁵ According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 23% of full-time private sector workers and an even larger share of part-time workers lack access to any employer-sponsored retirement plan.⁵ In total, this bars nearly 40 million American workers from the 401(k) system.⁵ Access is highly correlated with income and occupation; workers in lower-wage sectors such as construction, service, and agriculture are far less likely to have access than professionals and managers.⁵ This disparity is particularly acute for Black and Latino workers, who are disproportionately represented in jobs without retirement benefits.⁶

This structure creates a fundamentally unjust system where the ability to access crucial federal tax benefits for retirement saving is contingent not on an individual’s need or desire to save, but on the arbitrary decision of their employer to sponsor a plan.⁵ As the gig economy and non-traditional work arrangements grow, this coverage gap is likely to widen, leaving more Americans without a viable workplace savings vehicle.

Portability and Leakage

The modern labor market is characterized by frequent job changes, a reality for which the 401(k) system is poorly equipped.⁷ This creates two intertwined problems: a lack of portability and significant pre-retirement “leakage.” When employees switch jobs, their 401(k) accounts do not automatically follow them. This has led to an epidemic of “forgotten” accounts, with one 2023 estimate suggesting there are 29 million such accounts holding over $1.6 trillion in assets.⁸

Even when workers are aware of their old accounts, the process of moving the money is fraught with peril. Rolling a 401(k) into an IRA can expose savers to high-cost investments and conflicted advice.⁷ A more damaging outcome is simply cashing out the account. Faced with a financial emergency or the complexity of a rollover, many workers opt to take a lump-sum distribution, triggering income taxes and a 10% early-withdrawal penalty.⁷ This leakage permanently removes capital from the retirement system, forfeiting decades of potential compound growth. Furthermore, studies show that even when workers successfully move to a new job with a higher salary, a majority fail to increase their savings rate accordingly, leading to a substantial lifetime reduction in their potential nest egg.⁸ Recent legislation like the SECURE 2.0 Act has sought to address this by creating a “lost and found” database, but the core portability problem remains a significant drag on accumulation.⁸

Regressive and Ineffective Tax Incentives

The primary policy lever used to encourage retirement saving is a system of tax preferences, primarily deductions for contributions to traditional 401(k)s and IRAs. However, extensive research shows these incentives are both poorly targeted and largely ineffectual at generating new savings.¹

The value of a tax deduction is directly proportional to one’s marginal tax rate. A dollar contributed by someone in the 35% tax bracket receives a 35-cent subsidy from the government, while a dollar from someone in the 12% bracket receives only a 12-cent subsidy. This structure ensures that the largest government subsidies flow to the highest-income households, who are already the most likely to save.¹⁰ The EPI finds that this system magnifies inequality: the top 20% of families by income receive 59% of total income but hold 70% of retirement account balances, while the bottom 60% of families receive 23% of income but hold only 13% of retirement balances.¹

Moreover, for high-income households, these tax incentives often do not induce new saving but merely encourage the shifting of existing assets from taxable accounts into tax-advantaged ones to capture the subsidy.¹² A Brookings Institution proposal to reform these incentives notes that encouraging saving among lower- and middle-income households is more likely to represent a net increase in national saving.¹⁰ The current system of deductions does the opposite, providing the weakest incentive to the very households whose saving behavior is most critical to change.

1.3 The Squeeze on the Middle Class: Compounding Macroeconomic Pressures

The structural flaws of the DC system are exacerbated by powerful macroeconomic forces that have squeezed middle-class finances over the past several decades. These pressures are not separate issues but form a compounding, causal loop. Stagnant real wages reduce the input—the ability to contribute to a 401(k). Inflation then attacks the value of the savings that do exist. Finally, the specter of unpredictable healthcare costs acts as a massive potential drain, threatening to wipe out accumulated assets. This creates a vicious cycle that renders the 401(k) model insufficient even for the most diligent middle-class savers.

Wage Stagnation

For the majority of American workers, real wage growth has been sluggish for decades, severely limiting their capacity to save for retirement.⁶ The EPI has documented that the shift from pensions to 401(k)s has been a “disaster” for a majority of the population, including lower-income, Black, Hispanic, and non-college-educated workers, precisely because their wages have not provided a sufficient base from which to accumulate meaningful savings.¹

The impact of wage stagnation is particularly pernicious due to its interaction with Social Security. A crucial analysis from the Social Security Administration demonstrates that low economy-wide wage growth is far more damaging to retirement security than low individual wage growth.¹³ This is because Social Security benefits are calculated by indexing a worker’s past earnings to the growth in average national wages. When economy-wide wage growth is weak, this indexing factor is suppressed, lowering the foundation of a worker’s eventual benefit. The progressive nature of the benefit formula, which provides some insurance against individual earnings shocks, offers no protection when both individual and average wages are moving downward in tandem.¹³ This means that the primary public pillar of the retirement system is weakened at the same time that the private pillar is being starved of contributions, a double blow to middle-class retirement prospects.

Inflationary Erosion

High inflation acts as a “silent thief,” systematically eroding the purchasing power of retirement savings.¹⁴ According to a Department of Labor report to Congress, high inflation impacts retirement security in three primary ways: the income effect, the substitution effect, and the wealth effect.¹⁵ The income effect occurs when rising costs for daily necessities reduce a household’s ability to make retirement contributions.¹⁵ The substitution effect makes saving for the future more costly, as future consumption becomes more expensive relative to current consumption.¹⁵

Perhaps most damaging is the wealth effect, where inflation diminishes the real value of existing assets.¹⁵ This effect is not uniform across all asset classes. While equities and real estate generally tend to keep pace with inflation over the long term, fixed-income assets like nominal bonds see their value sharply decline.¹⁵ This is particularly dangerous for individuals nearing or in retirement, as standard financial advice encourages them to shift their portfolios toward a higher allocation of bonds to reduce volatility. This “safer” allocation makes their nest egg acutely vulnerable to an inflationary shock, as rising interest rates cause the market value of their existing bonds to fall precisely when they have the least amount of time to recover.¹⁵

The Healthcare Cost Burden

The single largest and most unpredictable threat to the retirement security of the middle class is the staggering cost of healthcare.¹⁷ While many Americans assume Medicare will cover most of their medical expenses in retirement, the reality is starkly different. Medicare covers only about two-thirds of an average retiree’s healthcare costs, leaving them responsible for significant out-of-pocket expenses, including premiums for Parts B and D, copayments, deductibles, and costs for services not covered by original Medicare, such as dental, vision, hearing, and most long-term care.¹⁸

Estimates for these out-of-pocket costs are daunting. A healthy 65-year-old couple retiring in 2023 was projected to need approximately $330,000 to cover their healthcare expenses throughout retirement—a figure that does not even include the potentially catastrophic costs of long-term care.²⁰ These costs are not static; healthcare inflation consistently outpaces general inflation, meaning the burden grows over the course of a multi-decade retirement.¹⁹ For low-income elderly individuals, out-of-pocket health spending can consume as much as 30% of their total income.¹⁸

This reality forces many retirees to treat their 401(k) or IRA not as a source of stable income, but as a contingency fund for medical emergencies, depleting assets far faster than planned and jeopardizing their financial security in later years.⁸ While vehicles like Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) offer a powerful triple-tax advantage for medical savings, they are only available to those enrolled in high-deductible health plans and remain significantly underutilized by the general population.²⁰ Ultimately, the unpredictable and escalating nature of healthcare costs can single-handedly derail even the most carefully constructed retirement plan, representing a systemic risk that the individual-centric 401(k) model is incapable of addressing.

Section II: Pathways to Reform - Evolutionary Approaches

In response to the growing retirement crisis, policymakers have advanced a range of reforms. This section evaluates “evolutionary” approaches—those that seek to improve retirement security by modifying or expanding the existing private savings architecture. These proposals largely accept the individual account framework of the 401(k)/IRA system but attempt to remedy its most significant deficiencies, particularly the gaps in access, the complexity of the system, and the lack of guaranteed income streams. They represent a path of incremental change rather than a complete overhaul of the system’s foundations.

2.1 Expanding Access Through Mandates: The Auto-IRA Model

The most prominent and successful evolutionary reform to date has been the development of Automatic IRA (Auto-IRA) programs. These programs directly address the coverage gap by requiring employers that do not offer their own retirement plan to facilitate employee savings through a state-administered IRA.²³ The core of the model is its use of behavioral economics, specifically the power of inertia. Employees are automatically enrolled with a default contribution rate deducted from their paycheck, but they retain full control to opt out or change their contribution level at any time.²⁶

State-led initiatives in Oregon (OregonSaves), Illinois (Illinois Secure Choice), and California (CalSavers) have served as crucial policy laboratories, proving the model’s feasibility and effectiveness. Collectively, these programs have enrolled hundreds of thousands of new savers—many of whom are lower-income or work for small businesses—and have accumulated billions of dollars in retirement assets.²⁶ The programs are designed to be simple and low-cost for employers, whose only responsibilities are to register and facilitate the payroll deductions, thereby overcoming the administrative burden that often deters small businesses from offering a 401(k).²⁶ The success of these state programs has fueled momentum for a national solution, such as the proposed “Automatic IRA Act of 2024.” This federal legislation would mandate that most employers with more than 10 employees offer a retirement plan, creating a nationwide floor for coverage and providing tax credits to small employers to offset any startup costs.²⁹

Despite their success in expanding access, Auto-IRA programs have inherent limitations. Most are structured as Roth IRAs, which carry lower annual contribution limits than 401(k)s (in 2025, $7,000 for an IRA versus $23,500 for a 401(k)) and, critically, do not permit employer matching contributions, a key driver of savings in the 401(k) system.³¹ Perhaps the most significant long-term challenge is the issue of account portability and the proliferation of small, stranded accounts.³⁴ The target demographic for these programs—lower-wage workers, often in high-turnover industries—is highly mobile. This mobility can lead to a large number of inactive accounts with small balances, which are expensive to administer and are at high risk of being “cashed out” between jobs rather than preserved for retirement.³⁴ While these programs have successfully solved the first-order problem of access, they have revealed a second-order challenge of ensuring these small accounts can be consolidated and grow into a meaningful source of retirement income.

2.2 Enhancing Flexibility: The Universal Savings Account (USA) Debate

A competing vision for reforming private savings is the Universal Savings Account (USA). This proposal responds to a different critique of the current system: that it is overly complex, with a confusing web of different account types, and excessively punitive, with penalties for accessing funds before retirement for non-retirement needs.³⁵ The USA framework reveals a fundamental tension in savings policy between the goals of

flexibility and preservation. While traditional retirement accounts prioritize preservation through penalties for early withdrawal, USAs prioritize flexibility by removing those barriers.

Proponents, including the Heritage Foundation and the Tax Foundation, advocate for USAs as simple, all-purpose savings vehicles.³⁵ A typical USA proposal would feature Roth-style tax treatment, where contributions are made with after-tax dollars, and all investment growth and withdrawals are tax-free.³⁵ Crucially, there would be no restrictions on the timing or purpose of withdrawals, no early-withdrawal penalties, and no income limits on who can contribute.³⁷ The goal is to create a single, streamlined account that encourages saving for all of life’s needs—from emergencies and education to homeownership and retirement—without government interference or micromanagement.

However, critics, notably the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, argue that this flexibility would come at a high cost, particularly for middle-class retirement security.¹² High-quality research on tax-based savings incentives suggests they are largely ineffective at increasing net national saving. Instead, they primarily benefit high-income households who respond by shifting existing savings from taxable accounts into the newly tax-favored USAs to receive a tax cut, without actually saving more overall.¹² For middle-income households, the unrestricted access to funds could be a significant drawback. By removing the penalties that make traditional retirement accounts effective “commitment devices,” USAs could encourage pre-retirement leakage, leaving households less prepared for their long-term needs.¹² The policy dilemma is clear: a system designed for maximum flexibility may ultimately fail to provide adequate long-term security.

Table 1: Comparative Analysis of Proposed Savings Accounts (Auto-IRA vs. USA)

Feature	Auto-IRA (e.g., Automatic IRA Act of 2024)	Universal Savings Account (USA)
Mandate/Eligibility	Mandatory for employers without a plan (e.g., >10 employees); automatic enrollment for employees (opt-out available).	Voluntary for all individuals; no income limits for participation.
Contribution Type	Employee payroll deductions only.	Individual contributions.
Contribution Limits	Standard IRA limits (e.g., $7,000 in 2025, plus catch-up).	Varies by proposal (e.g., $2,500 to $10,000 annually).
Employer Role/Match	Facilitate payroll deduction; no employer match permitted.	No employer role; no employer match.
Withdrawal Rules & Penalties	Standard IRA rules apply; 10% penalty for non-qualified withdrawals before age 59 ½.	No restrictions on timing or purpose of withdrawals; no penalties.
Tax Treatment	Typically Roth (post-tax contributions, tax-free growth and qualified withdrawals).	Roth-style (post-tax contributions, tax-free growth and all withdrawals).
Primary Beneficiaries	Lower- and middle-income workers without workplace retirement plan access.	Higher-income households with existing taxable savings.
Core Policy Goal	Increase retirement savings participation and preservation for uncovered workers.	Increase savings flexibility and simplify the tax code.

2.3 Modernizing Employer-Sponsored Plans

While Auto-IRAs and USAs focus on individuals outside the traditional employer-sponsored system, another set of reforms aims to improve the plans offered within it. These innovations seek to reintroduce elements of security, predictability, and risk-pooling that were lost in the shift from DB to DC plans.

Modern DB and Cash Balance Plans

A significant development has been the rise of “hybrid” pension plans, most notably cash balance plans.³⁸ Legally, these are defined-benefit plans, meaning the employer bears the investment risk and the benefits are insured by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC).³⁹ However, they present the benefit to the employee in a way that looks like a defined-contribution plan: a “hypothetical account” that grows with annual “pay credits” (a percentage of salary) and “interest credits” (a guaranteed rate of return).⁴⁰ This design combines the security and predictable growth of a traditional pension with the portable, easy-to-understand account balance of a 401(k).³⁹ These plans have become increasingly popular with professional firms (e.g., law and medical practices) because they allow for much higher tax-deductible contributions for older, higher-income owners than a 401(k) alone, while still providing a valuable benefit to rank-and-file employees.³⁹

Profit-Sharing Models

Another way to enhance traditional 401(k)s is by integrating a profit-sharing component. This allows an employer to make discretionary contributions to employee accounts based on the company’s profitability.⁴³ Unlike a fixed employer match, which is a required expense, profit-sharing contributions are flexible, allowing a company to contribute more in good years and less or nothing in lean years.⁴³ This flexibility makes it an attractive option for businesses with variable revenue streams. Profit-sharing can significantly boost employee retirement savings and helps align the financial interests of workers with the success of the company.⁴⁵ There are several allocation methods, from a simple “pro-rata” formula that gives every employee the same percentage of their pay, to more complex “age-weighted” or “new comparability” formulas that can be designed to provide larger contributions to older employees or key executives, as long as the plan passes IRS nondiscrimination tests.⁴³

Integrating Lifetime Income (Annuities)

Perhaps the most critical challenge for the DC system is the “decumulation” phase: converting a lump sum of savings into a sustainable income stream that lasts for a lifetime. To address the longevity risk inherent in DC plans, there is a growing policy and industry push to integrate lifetime income products, such as annuities, directly into 401(k) plans.³⁰ The SECURE Act and SECURE 2.0 included provisions to make it easier for employers to offer annuities in their plans by providing a “safe harbor” from liability.⁴⁶ Current research from institutions like the Pension Research Council explores making deferred annuities—which are purchased during one’s working years but begin paying out later in life (e.g., at age 80 or 85)—a default investment option within 401(k)s.⁴⁷ Furthermore, the industry is leveraging technology like artificial intelligence and advanced data analytics to develop more innovative and personalized annuity products that can adapt to changing market conditions and individual needs.⁵⁰ These efforts aim to reintroduce a pension-like stream of guaranteed income into the 401(k) framework, providing a crucial layer of security against outliving one’s savings.

Section III: Pathways to Reform - Foundational Reconstruction

While evolutionary approaches aim to patch the holes in the private savings system, a second category of reforms argues for a more foundational reconstruction of the public social insurance system. These proposals contend that the systemic risks facing retirees—market crashes, inflation, longevity, and catastrophic health costs—are too great to be managed at the individual level and require a collective, social insurance-based solution. The debate over these reforms is fundamentally an argument about the optimal balance between social insurance and individual responsibility in a modern economy. The manifest failures of the 401(k) system provide the primary impetus for these proposals, which assert that risks are best managed collectively, while opponents counter that such expansion comes at the cost of higher taxes, reduced economic growth, and diminished individual autonomy.

3.1 Reinforcing the Bedrock: The Case for Expanding Social Security

Social Security remains the most successful and important retirement program in the United States. It provides a near-universal, inflation-adjusted, progressive benefit that is pooled across the entire population, offering a form of security that the private market cannot replicate.⁶ For a significant portion of the elderly, particularly those in the bottom half of the income distribution, Social Security is their primary or sole source of income.² Given the inadequacies of the private system, a growing number of policymakers and advocates argue that the most direct path to improving middle-class retirement security is to strengthen and expand this foundational program.

Two major legislative proposals encapsulate this approach:

• The Social Security 2100 Act: Championed by Representative John Larson, this bill has evolved over several congressional sessions but consistently aims to enhance benefits and ensure the program’s long-term solvency.⁵⁴ Key benefit enhancements in various versions have included an across-the-board increase in the primary insurance amount, the adoption of the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly (CPI-E) for calculating cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs), which more accurately reflects seniors’ spending on healthcare, and the establishment of a new, more robust minimum benefit for low-wage workers.⁵⁴ To finance these changes and close the 75-year solvency gap, the bill’s central revenue provision is to apply the Social Security payroll tax to earnings above $400,000, effectively creating a “donut hole” that would close over time as the current taxable maximum ($176,100 in 2025) rises with wage growth.⁵⁴

• The Social Security Expansion Act: A more progressive proposal introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders and others, this bill calls for a more substantial, immediate benefit increase of $2,400 per year for all beneficiaries.⁵⁹ It would also adopt the CPI-E for COLAs and would fund these expansions and ensure 75-year solvency by applying the payroll tax to all income above $250,000.⁶⁰ Proponents argue this would require tax increases on less than 9% of American households while lifting millions of seniors out of poverty.⁶⁰

Economic analysis of these proposals reveals significant trade-offs. The Penn Wharton Budget Model (PWBM) projects that the Social Security 2100 Act would successfully stabilize the trust fund but would also lead to a modest long-term reduction in GDP (e.g., 1.1% by 2049) due to the distortionary effects of higher marginal tax rates on labor and capital.⁵⁶ Critiques from organizations like the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) have raised concerns about more recent versions of the Larson bill that make benefit increases temporary (e.g., for five or ten years), arguing that this creates uncertainty for retirees and could worsen the program’s finances if the benefits are later made permanent without additional revenue.⁵⁷ The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) has noted that such large tax increases should be considered in the context of the overall federal budget, as they would raise the top effective tax rate on earned income significantly, leaving little room for future tax increases to fund other national priorities.⁶⁴ Despite these critiques, the proposals highlight a growing consensus that Social Security’s revenue base must be expanded by asking high earners to contribute more, a position supported by a majority of Americans across party lines.⁵⁸

Table 2: Summary of Major Social Security Reform Proposals

Provision	Social Security 2100 Act (Various Versions)	Social Security Expansion Act
Across-the-Board Benefit Increase	Yes, typically a modest increase in the primary insurance amount formula (e.g., from 90% to 93% on the first bend point).	Yes, a flat increase of $2,400 per year ($200 per month).
COLA Formula	Adopts the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly (CPI-E), which typically grows faster than the current CPI-W.	Adopts the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly (CPI-E).
Minimum Benefit	Establishes a new, higher minimum benefit tied to a percentage of the poverty line.	Improves the Special Minimum Benefit for low-income workers.
Primary Revenue Source	Applies the 12.4% payroll tax to all wage earnings above $400,000.	Applies the 12.4% payroll tax to all wage earnings above $250,000.
Net Investment Income Tax (NIIT)	Some versions propose applying the 12.4% tax to net investment income for high earners.	Applies the 12.4% tax to net investment income for high earners.
Projected Impact on 75-Year Solvency	Varies by version; recent proposals close a large portion of the shortfall or achieve full solvency.	Aims to make the program fully solvent for the next 75 years.

3.2 A New Paradigm: Social Wealth Funds and Collective Capital

A more novel and structurally ambitious proposal for shoring up social insurance is the creation of a U.S. Social Wealth Fund (SWF), sometimes referred to as a sovereign wealth fund.⁶⁵ This approach represents a potential “third way” in retirement funding, attempting to merge the socialized risk of public programs with the higher returns of private capital markets. The viability of this concept, however, hinges almost entirely on solving the profound challenge of political governance.

The current U.S. retirement system presents a stark binary: the Social Security trust funds are invested exclusively in low-risk, low-return U.S. Treasury bonds, while private 401(k) accounts can access the higher returns (and higher risk) of the equity markets.⁶⁵ An SWF seeks to break this binary by allowing the public retirement system to benefit from market-based returns. A prominent proposal from Senator Bill Cassidy would establish a new investment fund, separate from the existing Social Security Trust Fund, capitalized with a large initial federal investment, such as $1.5 trillion over ten years.⁶⁵ This fund would be managed professionally and invested in a diversified portfolio of stocks, bonds, and other assets, similar to large state pension funds or the sovereign wealth funds of countries like Norway.⁶⁵

The core idea is to let this capital grow for a very long period—perhaps 65 to 75 years—before its returns are used to offset any unfunded liabilities in the Social Security system.⁶⁵ This long time horizon would, in theory, allow the fund to weather market volatility and capture the long-term equity risk premium, thereby generating substantial income to supplement traditional payroll tax revenues and prevent the need for future benefit cuts or tax hikes.⁶⁵ Proponents argue this would democratize access to capital returns for all Americans and mirror successful strategies used globally to manage national wealth for public benefit.⁶⁵

However, the concept faces formidable critiques, particularly concerning governance and political risk.⁶⁷ A government-controlled fund of this magnitude would be an unprecedented concentration of economic power. Critics from free-market institutions like the American Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute warn that such a fund would be a tempting target for political interference.⁶⁷ There would be immense pressure on fund managers to make investment decisions based not on maximizing fiduciary returns, but on political considerations—such as investing in favored industries, supporting specific social or environmental goals, or directing capital to the districts of powerful members of Congress.⁶⁷ This could lead to cronyism, corruption, and suboptimal investment performance, undermining the fund’s entire purpose. The central challenge for any SWF proposal is to design a governance structure that is credibly and permanently insulated from political meddling—a task of immense difficulty in the American political system.

Section IV: Lessons from Abroad - International Models for U.S. Reform

The challenges facing the U.S. retirement system are not unique; nations across the developed world are grappling with similar demographic and economic pressures. However, many have implemented reforms that offer valuable lessons for American policymakers. This section provides a comparative analysis of two of the world’s most highly-regarded retirement systems—those of Australia and the Netherlands. The analysis reveals that their success is built on principles of universality, mandates, and collective risk-pooling, which stand in stark contrast to the voluntary, individualistic approach of the United States. The primary distinction between these successful international systems and the U.S. model is the presence of a strong, mandatory “second pillar” of occupational pensions, which effectively closes the coverage gap that plagues the American system.

4.1 The Australian Superannuation Model: Universal DC Accumulation

The Australian retirement system provides a powerful example of how to achieve near-universal participation in a defined-contribution framework. The system is built on a three-pillar structure: a means-tested public Age Pension (Pillar 1), a mandatory occupational pension known as the “Superannuation Guarantee” (Pillar 2), and voluntary personal savings (Pillar 3).⁷⁰

The cornerstone of the system is the Superannuation Guarantee, established in 1992. This policy mandates that employers contribute a percentage of an employee’s earnings into a privately managed “super” fund. This contribution rate has been gradually increasing and is set to reach 12% of wages by July 2025.⁷⁰ This mandate applies to nearly all workers, effectively solving the coverage problem that leaves tens of millions of Americans without a workplace savings plan.⁷⁴ Contributions and investment earnings within the super funds are taxed at a concessional rate of 15%, which is lower than the marginal income tax rate for most Australians, creating a strong incentive to save within the system.⁷⁰

The results of this mandatory system have been transformative. Australia has amassed one of the largest pools of retirement capital in the world, with total assets projected to become the second largest globally by the early 2030s.⁷⁵ This massive accumulation of savings is expected to significantly reduce future government spending on the Age Pension, making Australia one of the only OECD countries where public pension spending as a share of GDP is projected to fall in the coming decades.⁷⁵

The key lesson from the Australian model is the undeniable effectiveness of a mandate in achieving universal coverage and high participation rates. It demonstrates that a DC system can be structured to ensure that nearly everyone accumulates retirement assets. However, because it remains a DC system at its core, it does not eliminate the fundamental risks borne by individuals. Retirees are still responsible for managing their accumulated lump sum and face both investment risk and longevity risk in the decumulation phase.⁷⁴ The Australian experience shows that while a mandate can solve the accumulation problem, it does not, by itself, solve the retirement income security problem.

4.2 The Dutch Three-Pillar System: Collective Risk-Pooling

The pension system of the Netherlands, consistently ranked as one of the best in the world, offers a different paradigm—one rooted in collective risk-pooling and shared responsibility.⁷⁷ Like Australia, it is a multi-pillar system, but its structure and philosophy are fundamentally different. The Dutch system consists of a flat-rate, universal public pension (Pillar 1, the AOW), quasi-mandatory, industry-wide, collectively funded defined-benefit pension plans (Pillar 2), and voluntary individual savings (Pillar 3).⁷⁸

The defining feature of the Dutch model is its powerful second pillar. While not a direct government mandate, collective bargaining agreements make participation in industry-wide pension funds compulsory for over 80% of the workforce.⁸⁰ These large, non-profit funds operate on a defined-benefit basis, pooling investment and longevity risks across millions of workers, multiple employers within an industry, and across generations.⁷⁷ This collective structure provides enormous efficiencies and allows for professional, long-term-oriented asset management that is impossible to replicate at the individual level.

The outcomes are remarkably strong. The combination of the universal public pension and the high replacement rates from the collective occupational pensions provides Dutch retirees with one of the most adequate and secure retirement incomes in the world. For a median earner, the net income replacement rate often exceeds 100% of pre-retirement earnings.⁷⁸ The system’s robust funding and risk-sharing mechanisms also make it highly sustainable, even in the face of demographic pressures.⁷⁷

The lesson from the Netherlands is a powerful counterpoint to the individualistic ethos of the U.S. system. It demonstrates that a system prioritizing collective security and shared risk over individual choice and flexibility can deliver superior outcomes in terms of both adequacy and sustainability. The Dutch model proves that it is possible to structure a mandatory occupational pension system on defined-benefit principles, providing a level of security that is simply unattainable in a DC-only world. The choice between the Australian and Dutch models thus represents a fundamental choice between two different risk paradigms for a mandatory system: individualized DC risk versus collectivized DB risk.

Table 3: International Retirement System Models (U.S. vs. Australia vs. Netherlands)

System Feature	United States	Australia	The Netherlands
Primary Public Pension (Pillar 1)	Progressive, earnings-related benefit (Social Security).	Flat-rate, means-tested benefit (Age Pension).	Flat-rate, universal benefit based on residency (AOW).
Occupational Pension System (Pillar 2)	Voluntary, employer-by-employer system.	Mandatory employer contribution (Superannuation Guarantee).	Quasi-mandatory, industry-wide collective bargaining.
Pillar 2: DB or DC?	Primarily Defined Contribution (401(k)).	Defined Contribution (Superannuation).	Primarily Defined Benefit (Collective industry funds).
Pillar 2: Mandatory or Voluntary?	Voluntary.	Mandatory.	Quasi-Mandatory.
Primary Risk Bearer	Individual worker.	Individual worker.	Collective (Pension fund members).
Typical Income Replacement Rate (Median Earner)	Low to moderate; highly variable.	Moderate; dependent on market returns.	Very high; often >100% (net).

Section V: A Multi-Pillar Framework for a Secure Future - Synthesis and Recommendations

The preceding analysis demonstrates that the current U.S. retirement system is structurally incapable of providing a secure retirement for the middle class. Its over-reliance on a voluntary, individual-risk model has been undermined by stagnant wages, rising costs, and systemic coverage gaps. Lessons from both domestic policy innovation and successful international systems suggest that a more robust and resilient framework is both necessary and achievable. No single policy can solve this multifaceted crisis. Instead, the path forward requires the construction of an integrated, multi-pillar system where each component is designed to achieve a specific objective and mitigate a different set of risks. This concluding section synthesizes the report’s findings to recommend such a framework for the United States.

Pillar 1: A Strengthened Social Insurance Foundation

The first and most critical pillar must be a strengthened and financially sound Social Security system. Social Security is the only component of the retirement system that provides a universal, progressive, inflation-protected, and guaranteed lifetime income. Its role as the bedrock of retirement security must be reinforced.

• Recommendation: Congress should act to ensure the 75-year solvency of Social Security while simultaneously enhancing its benefits. This should be achieved primarily by increasing the program’s revenue base. The most direct and equitable way to do this is to adopt a key provision from proposals like the Social Security 2100 Act: applying the Social Security payroll tax to earnings above a high threshold, such as $400,000.⁵⁴ This would ask the nation’s highest earners to contribute on a larger portion of their income, aligning their contributions more closely with those of middle-class workers. The additional revenue should be used not only to close the solvency gap but also to fund modest benefit enhancements targeted at the most vulnerable, such as establishing a higher minimum benefit for lifelong low-wage workers and adopting the CPI-E to provide more accurate cost-of-living adjustments for all retirees.⁵⁵

Pillar 2: A Universal, Portable, and Preserved Savings System

The second pillar must address the most glaring failure of the private system: the coverage gap. Drawing on the success of state-level experiments and international mandates, the U.S. should establish a universal system to ensure every worker can participate in supplemental retirement savings.

• Recommendation: A federally mandated Auto-IRA system should be established for all workers whose employers do not offer a qualifying retirement plan.²⁹ This program would require employers above a small size threshold (e.g., 10 employees) to facilitate employee contributions to a national, professionally managed IRA program via automatic payroll deduction. The system should be designed with minimal administrative burden on employers, supported by federal tax credits to offset any costs.²⁹ Critically, this national system must be built with “auto-portability” at its core. To prevent the proliferation of small, stranded accounts, a centralized record-keeping system should be created to automatically consolidate an employee’s accounts as they move from job to job, preserving capital and allowing it to compound effectively over a lifetime.³⁴

Pillar 3: An Improved and Risk-Managed Voluntary System

The third pillar consists of the existing voluntary employer-sponsored system. For the millions of Americans who do have access to a 401(k) or similar plan, policy should incentivize the adoption of plan designs that reduce individual risk and improve long-term outcomes.

• Recommendation: Federal policy should further encourage the integration of lifetime income options into DC plans. This includes strengthening the safe harbors for employers to offer high-quality, low-cost annuities and exploring the feasibility of making deferred income annuities a qualified default investment alternative (QDIA) for a portion of plan assets.⁴⁷ This would help address longevity risk by providing a pension-like income stream in advanced age. Additionally, tax incentives could be restructured to favor plans that incorporate risk-sharing features, such as cash balance plans or generous, non-discretionary employer contributions, over plans that place the maximum burden on employees.³⁹

Integrating Other Assets: The Role of Housing Equity

Finally, a comprehensive retirement security framework must acknowledge the role of non-financial assets, particularly home equity, which is the largest source of wealth for most middle-class families.⁸³ While housing equity should not be viewed as a primary source of retirement income, it can serve as a crucial backstop against major financial shocks, especially the catastrophic costs of long-term care.

• Recommendation: Policymakers should support efforts to improve the transparency, accessibility, and consumer protections for products that allow seniors to tap their home equity, such as Home Equity Conversion Mortgages (HECMs), or reverse mortgages.⁸³ The goal is not to encourage widespread use of these products for regular consumption, but to ensure they are a safe and viable option for homeowners to manage major, otherwise uninsurable late-life expenses without being forced to sell their homes under duress.

By implementing this integrated, multi-pillar framework, the United States can move away from its current fragmented and inadequate system. A strengthened Social Security, a universal and portable savings mandate, and an improved voluntary system that better manages risk can collectively forge a new and realistic pathway to a secure and dignified retirement for the American middle class.

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