In the past decade the number of California workers with access to a retirement plan at work has plummeted. A recent study by The New School’s Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (SCEPA) shows that in 2009, 52.3 percent of California’s workers did not have access to an employer-provided retirement plan—representing a 6.5 percent rise over the previous decade in workers without pension access.
This increase poses a danger to the broader economy, which will suffer the destabilizing effects of mass retirement insecurity. Legislators can address this looming crisis with a fair, low-cost solution: opening existing, well-managed retirement systems to private sector employees.
SCEPA’s new statistics underscore the need for the California state legislature to once again take action on legislation based on my proposal. Titled The California Retirement Savings Act, the bill was introduced by State Senator Kevin DeLeon and passed the state senate in February.