Andy Kim Grills Experts On Independent Workers' Ability To Save For Retirement

Forbes Breaking News

In a Senate Health Committee hearing on Thursday, Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) asked Executive Director of the Pension Rights Center Karen Friedman about retirement for independent contractors.

Transcript

00:00and the next person is Senator Kim thank you chairman thank you to the five of

00:06you for coming out and talking to us today I wanted to just share because

00:11it's very much on my mind just the challenges my family's facing right now

00:15you know my family's really struggling right now my father's been in and out of

00:18the hospital four times since Father's Day weekend I just had major surgery a

00:24few days ago and I've been rushing back and forth from here to go see him try to

00:28care for him I'm the only family he has around I know that things are only

00:33gonna get worse you know he doesn't know what country he lives in he's got a lot

00:36of physical issues and this is all accentuated by the fact that for a

00:40variety of reasons my father was not able to save up for his retirement Miss

00:46Friedman he's similar to what you were saying he's one of those people that is

00:49getting less than $24,000 a year from Social Security and that is the entirety

00:54of his income right now so this is obviously not just affecting him but

00:59it's affecting me it's affecting my kids and what I can try to think about be

01:03able to provide for them so I'm Miss Friedman I guess I just wanted to ask you

01:07because I'm struggling with this I know a lot of people are they feel that

01:11anxiety I mean I talked to workers in New Jersey one woman told me there's so

01:15much challenge it feels like it's hard for her to breathe right now and I feel that

01:18right now as I'm talking to you I want to ask you just what suggestions do you have

01:23for us to think through how to ensure more people especially those low and

01:27middle class have access to retirement plans and in the breadth of what we're

01:31talking about today in terms of independent contractors too thank you

01:36thank you for that question Senator Kim first of all my condolences to you for

01:42all you're going through because I had to do a similar thing with my family and I

01:45know how hard it is and families throughout this country are struggling

01:48right now the fact is 50% of the workforce the private workforce has no

01:55pensions or savings to supplement Social Security so yeah they're struggling and

02:01my parents only lived on Social Security so I know how that is I think we have to

02:06explore solutions one of the solutions and I know you and I talked about a

02:09little bit earlier is looking at the the state administered auto IRAs for people who

02:15who are not covered working for pensions for all Senator Sanders bill looking at

02:22our principal seeing if there's other proposals I mean one of the things that

02:25the pension rights that are trying to do is see if we can find we're working from

02:30small to large large to small you know sort of supporting you know like Senator

02:35Senator Sanders proposal but also supporting the state facilitated auto IRAs we have to

02:41and you think that that makes sense to to look into seeing how we can ensure that that

02:45that auto IRA effort can be expand I know it's in what a number of states

02:49already but trying to expand it to ensure that maybe independent contractors can

02:53better benefit yes yes I know I know a lot of the states the the state

02:59administered auto IRAs actually include independent contractors and I think that

03:05we I think they aspire to to all do so I think we have to I think we have to we

03:12have to all work together Senator Kim and we look forward to doing that with the

03:15committee I hope so I hope we can work together because again you know this is

03:18something on the minds of everyone miss Kevin you know we're from the same state

03:22here you know our state does have one of these auto IRA efforts underway efforts

03:28try to expand it to be able to more broadly include as well all forms of

03:33independent contractors I'm just trying to think through the tools at our

03:36disposal we're thinking through federal I'm trying to think through just what's

03:40access to people is that something you'd see some value in do you think that

03:44there's opportunity where you know that can be able to provide some additional

03:47tools for independent contractors if we're able to sort of pursue that kind of

03:52auto IRA effort I think the first thing we have to do is protect our freedom to

03:56actually be independent contractors and that is under attack both at the federal

04:01level and very much right now in our home state I understand that and and I take to

04:05your point you know I want to make sure people have flexibility you know I want to

04:09make sure that they can be able to live the lives that they want to live and we

04:14will take that on here and have some tough conversations here no doubt but

04:19still I'm just trying to think pragmatically is that's at least

04:21something that you'd be open to the exploring and seeing how that type of

04:25tool at the state level might be utilized I'm happy to meet with you and talk

04:29with you about anything you'd like and I do feel for you with your dad we're

04:33going through something similar I had an aunt who just took a bad fall she's a

04:37retired nurse who spent a few days in the ER she was incredibly impressed with

04:41the traveling nurses the independent contractors who helped her get better

04:45and get home so again what I say first and foremost is before we delve into all

04:51these specifics on other types of things we need to protect the freedom for all

04:55of us to actually be independent contractors and earn a living yeah my

04:59mom was one of those nurses that worked at a hospital there but then wanted to be

05:02all have some more freedom you know for her own be able to do you know home

05:06visits and other things of that and try to find different arrangements so look

05:09you know I see how that benefited her allowed her to be the kind of mom she

05:13wanted to be so you know let's continue to try to work together here and see

05:17what we can get done and with that I'll yield back thank you very compelling

05:20Senator Kim thank you for sharing your life

Category

Transcript

Recommended