Published: March 2022

Protect retirees and savers from conflicted investment advice

Coalition: Save Our Retirement

A broad coalition of leading worker, consumer and investor advocates has urged the Department of Labor (DOL) to quickly update and strengthen the rules governing retirement investment advice to help protect workers and retirees from harmful conflicts of interest. Conflicted retirement investment advice costs retirement savers tens of billions of dollars every year.

In 2021, the Biden administration acknowledged the need to update the Department of Labor’s (DOL) definition of who is considered a fiduciary when providing retirement investment advice and the related investor protections that should apply to that advice. The current rule allows for conflicted investment advice that puts the retirement savings of millions of Americans at risk and is inconsistent with the letter and spirit of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), the statute whose purpose is to promote the retirement security of workers and retirees. The DOL can and should better protect Americans’ retirement savings by strengthening the rules that govern the provision of retirement investment advice.

Other Organizations

AARP | Airline Pilots Association International (ALPA) | Alliance for Retired Americans (ARA) | American Federation of Labor & Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) | American Federation of Musicians (AFM) | American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) | American Federation of Teachers (AFT) | Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund | Association of Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA) | Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM) | Better Markets | Center for American Progress (CAP) | Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) | Committee for the Fiduciary Standard | Consumer Action | Consumer Federation of America (CFA) | Economic Policy Center (EPI) | Institute for the Fiduciary Standard | International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) | International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) | International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers (BAC) | Investor Rights Clinic, University of Miami School of Law | National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare | National Coordinating Committee for Multiemployer Plans (NCCMP) | National Nurses United (NNU) | Pension Rights Center | Public Citizen | Public Investors Advocate Bar Association (PIABA) | RealFi Investor Rights Clinic, John Jay Legal Services, Inc. | Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University | Securities Arbitration Clinic, Cardozo School of Law | Securities Arbitration Clinic, St. Vincent De Paul Legal Program, Inc. | St. John's University School of Law | Social Security Works | United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry of the United States and Canada (UA) | UNITE HERE! | United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) | United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service | Workers International Union (USW) | U.S. PIRG | Woodstock Institute

More Information

Click here to read the coalition letter in full.

For more information, please visit AARP.

 

 

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