age 65. the 2.2% of average income provides 90% or more of the income for 35% of seniors. the poverty rate, the supplemental poverty rate viewed as the better measure for seniors is not working .8 and it compares to 15.5% for the adult population as a whole. the story social security has been effective in lifting huge numbers of seniors above the poverty so poverty rates basically the same as the adult population, different from the story we saw before we had social security. the second point i want to make him and the importance for middle-income people as projected to rise tuesday over the next two decades. if we look at the current generation of retirees, social security counts for 32 bit and

to rise to 37 for workers who hit 67 to train the three and 2042. the rise is more dramatically long wage income from 41.92 not 48th. if you like it which rental income we have housing income and that arises from 46.4 to 84.8%. this illustrates the fact because of the collapse of defined benefit pensions, social security is perfect date to be an important and came in the decades ahead. something we have to be aware of. the last party want to make within reference to the elderly consumer price index. if you go back to the decision to index social security, presumably the 1975 intention of insurance seniors preserve theirs entered a flipping. the elderly and taxes in tended to track the standard of living,

prices paid by the elderly has is consistently within two tenths to three tenths of a percentage point more rapidly than the overall cpi primarily because the more rapid growth in health care costs. by contrast, the proposal to switch to the chained consumer price index is literally no evidence an accurate measure of the cost. this substitution is looking at substitution for the population as a whole, not for the elderly. if the intention of congress is to have an index of accurately tracks the consumer -- the consumption patterns of the elderly to instruct those statistics to set one up and frankly i don't know what it does show a higher measure rate of inflation or lower. i can say would show a more accurate one. thank you. >> thank you, mr. baker. mr. sweeney appeared >> chairman brown, breaking member toomey, senator isakson

and casey, thank you relatedness speak on this topic. i am john sweeney can responsible for investment strategies. the privilege of helping with a 23 million americans safer retirement through their workplace and personal savings retirement accounts such as 401(k)s and iras. by cucumber to help americans americans feel more confident and achieve batteries is for families and income retirements. at fidelity come or passionate about sharing expertise and insights of customers. everyday working americans ask us to defy their paycheck in order to meet multiple financial obligations including paying down the mortgage, savings for children's college, possibly caring for an aging parent. one goal is being ready for retirement. this includes young investors and run their workplace savings plan or an older couple nearing 65 and asking if they saved enough to contemplate retirement. investors need help navigating accounts and choices available

to them at all stages of life. the retirement system is working well for those utilizing it as designed. however, many people are not saving enough to ensure they will have a comfortable retirement. at the highest level, americans need to save more and we need to his identity that. we need to provide the health care seeking to make it easier to achieve retirement security. as you know, i. plans have become one of the primary ways most americans safer retirement and for those who enroll early and careers say this much is possible increase savings as they earn more. the results are generally good. in fact, our latest data showed people who continuously say for 10 years, the average balance in a 401(k) has reached more than $223,000 up from approximately $53,000 a decade ago. that said, we still put to do to

ensure as many people as possible for retirement. we surveyed households to understand how prepared people were to cover basic expenses like housing, food and health care and retirement. the results of aggregate wer the results of aggregate were sobering. we found 55% of american workers were an airport conditions that were not on track. we coded the stoop of red and yellow in a retirement preparedness measure which is the on page seven of our written testimony of both the church of the right. on the other hand come a third of households surveyed or try to cover 95%. for these people, the system is working well. while baby boomers is an age cohort generally doing well, generation workers face for significant challenges. with longer expectancies and pensions available to them, investors need more of their own and anticipate working longer to live a comfortable retirement. that's what we believe we need to encourage higher level of

saving now. we know with younger investors the most powerful way to improve readiness is to save more come even a small amount. research shows that a 25 euros earning $40,000 a year increasing savings 1% a year can be $300 per month more in income in retirement. we apply the employers have adopted out of enrollment programs and provide a generous come in a match. these firms are leaders and help your employees get on the path to retirement security. policymakers should consider doubling the default savings rate from 3% to 6%. while research shows to the new save 10% to 15% annually in order to retire securely, they starting at 6%, you can get on track for success are retire in a few short years he taken the step now be a world of difference for younger generations. finally, we need to find ways to provide investors with our guidance and education, not

less. at fidelity, people come to navigate the most complex difficult decisions of their lives. the demand for education and systematic or the financial crisis. we take seriously obligations to simplify complexity into every southbound. earlier, the battery. data shows workers who engage in retirement planning session online or on the phone increase the amount they save by 5% to 6% and take great pride to anyone. we encourage the committee to ensure people can continue to have resources they need to make good responsible decisions for themselves and families. we recognize major challenges solving issues but with your partnership we work together to increase savings rates in the work pace and help her americans be better prepared or retirement and meet the challenges that lie ahead. thank you for the opportunity and i'm pleased to take your questions. >> thank you, mr. sweeney.

mr. romasco, he suggested that sun offers to enhance their increase social security in a variety of ways as they were between generations, why are they wrong? >> i think the issue is that as a false premise. basically we have a finite resources limited to the family have to fight over them. the issue is we all age. you know, when you are 20 and he ran in to the workforce, you have a long life of retirement. if you look at the intergenerational dvd, you are concerned about your life in family and parents and vice versa. the notion is not one of intergenerational conflict. we look at the data. the transfer of files is kind of different. we've seen massive wealth redistribution in this country

over the last 30 years. it's a false premise. we are all in this together. we care for children. children don't want our parents to be burdened. we as grand parents don't want her children to be burdened. when you look at the intergenerational dynamics of families, protect the workers, we have an idea based on social influence. broad is together. we'll contribute and take the benefit appropriately. they're designed to protect us all to the journey of life. >> thank you. mr. biggs, i want to ask a series of questions to you. if you would answer them together and then it should be take a shot if you'd like to. just general kind of thoughts on our current social security levels adequate? should we enhance social security? if so, how should we do a quick if you believe we should modernize social security, with your definition of modernizing the system?

mr. biggs, general thoughts about those three questions and then each of you respond also, please. >> is an automatic testimony, social security benefits are an average were adequate than many people think. the talking point you here, which comes from social security itself as financial advisors recommend you need to pay 70% to 80% of retirement in come. social security offers the average required 40%. the problem is measurements are measured in different ways. financial it is theirs relative to final earnings, social security measures relative to each index average. gracious apples and oranges. if you measure social security benefits of a advisers for, social security and average are not clearly inadequate. at the same time, the big problem is for folks at the low

end. social security benefits are not adequate on average. the problem is there is enormous variation in the replacement race people receive, even if they have the same lifetime income comments and contributions to the program. for example, if you take a husband, wife, couple, to benefit based on whether they slit the earnings tune has been on life or whether there has been earned that all the wife doesn't. even if they had the exact same lifetime earnings. likewise, if you have an individual -- to individuals with lifetime earnings. if one is 35 years, the others a long career over 45 years, thought the same lifetime earnings, but a different benefit. for low-income people, social security zabriskie benefit. and uncertain benefit. you have enormous variation benefits to receive. if we reduce the variation and give a better target, more

uniform and say, something i've written about fairly extensively, you could reduce poverty in old age and provide a much more reliable social insurance program. you can do with the same price we currently pay. the problem with social security is that the social insurance program is like a house in insurance policy that may or may not pay off if your house burns down. you can't be assured of having a high replacement rate. the simpler better targeted program, one that is a better social insurance policy for people on the bottom and. but to be frank, help high income people save more. dean's point to this is the important component of income for middle income and high income people in the united states. some people say that shows how important social security is good that tells me we have a lot of people who could, should and would be saving more, but

they're not because they getting social security benefits. low-income people need a better social security program. higher income folks need to save more and around. >> mr. baker, your thoughts on those questions. >> a couple points. certainly for low income, modern income, social security, social security methodically. it's easy to make a big difference for low moderate income people with reforms that don't add a lot to the cost. some women's groups put together program some years back that called for making surviving spousal benefits 75 and of the combined benefit. a lot of the poorest elderly are surviving spouses, most off if women. it's a relatively low cost proposal. you could cap that at the average research is not a big extent. reason the bottom tier for 90% to 100%. you could take that back so higher income beneficiaries don't benefit again. that would limit the cost and increase the payback benefits on

the order of a button% for low-income people. some things we can do very low cost. i think i'm agreeing a little bit. it's important to make it easier for people to save. it is unfortunate how many workers basically because we've lost to find a good pension plan and many workers don't work in places that have defined contribution plans. if they do, they don't stay there long enough. there's been a number of proposals and bipartisan support to set up some system at a savings plan open to everyone. the administrative costs make a big difference. many do not. it does make very big difference from its ability to indicate retirement. if everyone had the option to have a certain amount that did as the default contribution, you could opt-out of input into thrift savings type plan, take it wherever they went. automatic annuitization. option out of that with either

the fall. that could make a big difference for middle-income retirees and how much they're able to save. the next mr. sweeney you >> the way we think about social security is one longevity and to provide predictable income for people entering retirement. when we deal with customers contemplating the ability to enter retirement and we asked them to figure out expenses. we try to recover essential expenses. food, shelter, medical care was predictable stream of income is possible. social security provides one of the strengths of income. the other thing is if you can continue to work longer, the benefit you receive on an annual basis increases the present year. we ask people who accumulated wealth to think about spending down their current personal wealth before they tap into social security in order to receive a higher annual panic from social security that they can to further time taken. >> thank you.

senators to me. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to delve into the solvency issue facing social security and mr. baker object did to my the program as being cash flow negative. of course the ugly he's correct because we have what i consider a series of accounting devices synopsis date the reality of this program. one is the interest income that is a certificate that the treasury has over to the social security administration, which is filed in a filing cabinet and has nowhere realized that behind it than any other certificates in that filing cabinet. when we look at this, we could look narrowly about reaching two d. assets in the social security trust fund and i think we miss the more essential to life, which is this. what is the ability of the federal government to honor the

commitment made to current retirees and future retirees. i'm wondering if you would agree with my characterization for the purpose of evaluating a question, the federal government as a whole honor its commitment. what matters is the cash flow through the payroll taxes and benefits paid out. intergovernmental transfers a certificate don't have any material impact at all. you agree with that, mr. bates? >> imagine if we had no trust funds at all. if that were the case, couple years ago when social security started running negative cash flow, we face the choice of raising taxes, issuing my dad are paying benefits. those to be the three choices we face. the trust fund vices you in one

direction. as long as you have a alan, the default position is fully their raise taxes or borrow so we can pay full benefits. once the trust fund runs out, the default position of the federal government is we are going to cut benefits back to whatever level we pay the payroll taxes. the trust fund has the legal significance and pushes policy in one direction. the choices you face, the resources available, where you have to get them from at the same at the trust fund or don't have a trust fund. >> is it fair to say economically there are no real at backing up certificates in the trust fund's class the existence of the trust fund does not have any impact whatsoever on the federal government to honor commitments? >> exactly. it's a commitment to pay, not money that enables you to pay. the trust fund is to make it easier to finance social security.

>> the interest income of u.s. an accounting device, is not rather akin to my taking $1000 out of my savings account and cnet have another thousand dollars of income? there's nothing real bear. it is important that we focus on this because i ain't we are kidding ourselves if we think somehow everything is fine for several decades because we have this nominal trust fund that we treat as though it were real asset and is fundamentally not. i want to ask another question because you made another interest and series of points about how defined contribution plans could have the images for this is the ape with defined benefit plans. people sometimes mistakenly think i've were characterized defined contribution plan as very risky in the person who takes their accumulated life savings and invest in enron the day before at augusta that.

what you characterize, especially lifecycle investing impartial annuitization really eliminate that risk. could you ask thing in particular with the lifecycle investment profile is all about and how that works? >> you get these lifecycle -- lifestyle fund available in a number of 401(k) plans. they try to tackle the problem. they've don't reallocate as you get older. they don't think about how different investments fared. they should do from stocks when you're young. when you're younger you can afford to bear a little more investment risk. when you're older, you want something more predict bull. it does this automatically over time. if you have income fund, inc.

says abdel amo caused solution to a problem. more broadly, what people think about eb versus d.c. plans, who bears the mark of this? that's the less important thing to focus on. the differences are your automatically enrolled at the differences in the contribution rate is saving rate. the annuitization are by far the more important difference is to me. those are things we can do today through d.c. plans into a certain degree already are doing today. d.c. plans have problems. the problems could be fixed. db plans, if you look at the state and local set are our problems in a lot of ways i'm much more difficult effects. >> thank you very much. thank you, mr. c mr. chairman. >> in 1983, when reagan and tip o'neill change the social security rules, they pass their

world is that if you were born after 43 come your eligibility went from age 65 to age 67. i was born in 44, so is the first generation to lose a year of my social security eligibility. it's going to reach 67 in a few years. there are a lot of people proposing looking into the out years of pushing eligibility for children and grandchildren. what would be your position on that, mr. romasco? >> what we've advocated and had strenuously for over year as i congress nation out of the deficit to session and have retirement discussion. among the possibilities raising the age along with a series of others. we have to look for the financial issue, superbas and shall issue a loan-to-value issue. there's challenges of raising the age and one of the challenges is clearly very difficult to ask it coalminer to

go down in the mine when he fixed jeter 69 avenue where we chose to spend on her feet for 30 years. they should be part of a larger conversation about social security while the broader retirement system. suggestions here are a few considerations. the important thing is that the socialist charity retirement systems conversation. >> mr. biggs, what do you think? >> mr. romasco side of the coal miners among like that. go back to 1950 with the highly industrialized economy. coal miners and farmers and factory workers. the average age claiming men was 68. today, when your biggest on-the-job risk of carpal tunnel from your mouse or something like that, it is 63. a few months ago i did not propose raising the retirement age. i think the idea we can't have a higher retirement age life in

the face fact people did in fact retire later in the past in today's jobs are less physically demanding than they were in the past. it's not something that has to happen, but something people should be open to. >> mr. baker? >> a couple points. there's been a growing gap in life expect to see. people point to the fact we're living longer and that's true. it's not quite the same for everyone. just notionally life expectancy about those in the top quintile, not those in the bottom half of the income distribution. the idea they'll enjoy longer retirement isn't necessarily true. we did analysis looking at beirut department classifications. close to half of workers in the bottom quintile were jobs classified by the labor department is physically demanding. working as waitresses, being on their feet eight hours a day. the idea we are worried about

carpal tunnel syndrome with a mouse is not true. i'd be hesitant to raise the retirement age. >> mr. sweeney. >> we try to quantify how delayed retirement was. have purposely retirement from 65 to 70, they got 12 and improvement. when we saw folks who work part-time, working one day last year for each of those five years past age 65. we size seven-point improvement in scores. it's a choice people can make. the other thing about the types of work other people do. we will have seven different careers -- seven different jobs and working tenure. the shops may not be the same types. we need to consider what worked people want to do. people want to work longer. today 65 euros or more healthy and not to. that's going to be a trend that workers are going to want to continue to pursue. >> one of the things that is the single biggest problem we've got

to figure a way to overcome his lack of investor sophistication and knowledge of saving for retirement in the first place. i know a fidelity utility at every day with a coming of age 55 and say they want to retire in 10 years or can you help me get ready? if they'd done that 25 years earlier would've been an easier question. i think senator to me signed onto it as some of the others, to really promote the tax benefit at retirement savings in government programs incentivized people to save. are there things you can recommend we should be doing? in the end, the easing of the pressure of the government is going to be when individuals are capable of taking other care because they're better educated on interest in the first place. >> exactly right. the younger we get an employee at a high level correctly allocated commanders and it continued a come on markets are volatile the more people will be

prepared after retirement. some of the comments mr. biggs made about autorama to successful. ebony fat and offer autoenrollment. we need to have more employees make that a mandatory option. the other feature that is advantageous as auto escalation. today people defaulted 3% enrollment rate. 3% of effort to do to their 401(k). the order should be double to 6%. the real number is 10% to 15% of which includes employee contributions plus much available from employer. we want the auto escalation for people over a short period of time get to the target savings rate of 10% to 15%. the mike senator casey. >> mr. chairman, thank you very much. i want to thank senator brown for calling the hearing and the work he and senator toomey did to bring this hearing about. i wanted to start with

mr. romasco. i had a couple questions prepared, but your opening statement, the way you personalize the, sometimes a kind of testimony we don't hear too often in this room. i wanted, if you could, i know this is somewhat of your answer probably is dependent on some of extrapolation may be. if you could reject to the present scenario you describe that your mom was facing, how do you compare what your mama spacing in terms of the dependent the end social security and the effectiveness that it was whether when a 33-year-old mother would face today. are you able to do that? >> it's hard to do that, but i can tell you that if we look at

the circuit dances, if that were happening today, i suspect we'd have to raise the finding a job and pay the rent. as it three decker house, working class and the part about him. the economic forces in the late 40s and early 50s weren't lavish, but they are more severe now. health care costs have increased. all the costs have increased tremendously. i would suspect more challenging, especially given what's happening with wages over time. i'm just projecting that. the difference of having some level of security that knows we can pay pay the rack, can the food on the table makes an enormous difference in the way the family unit is facing. i just, you know, i didn't

realize it until i started to look in. i always thought my life was fine. i had a sense of security. i have a notion that a check was coming and she was in pulling hair out every night. she was working hard. that would be significantly different. 20% of this country are doing okay, 1% of us are doing really okay. most members tommy, i'm just trying to get writing. i'm worried about all americans, particularly the 80%. >> i don't think there's any question, you don't need to have a degree in economics or a lot of it pants learning to look at the data. and what happens in the middle class over the last -- the last four years, the last 10 years in the last 45.

they hammer with the middle class has endured, which are below the middle class. you talked about in your testimony the idea that their primaries is of retirement income. you also point out the 78 million americans don't have access to the retirement plan. that is based dunning number. we can debate how that's happened. what would you hope that the congress would do in the next two years worse though to me changes? all of us, in either party, as much as we debate and might have disagreements, we all have a pretty serious obligation to get this right.

.. sure we do not conflate this conversation with the deficit conversation. social security plays a huge role in that. we hear a lot of suggestions about how to look at work and savings as part of the three legged stool. how do we restore those two legs? social security is about advocacy as well as solvency. and number of suggestions are part of that conversation. at the same time, let's not look at social security as a piggy bank to solve the deficit. what kind of country do we want? what can we afford and what are we willing to pay for? >> the red light is on.

i am asking your iulnce. mr. chairman i know the red light is on but asking your indulgence may be just a lightning round with the remaining witnesses on what you hope we would do in the next two years? we won't allow you to have much time but if you can encapsulate it. >> it's not simply about solvency. too often the problem is republicans think that social security is doing fine except we don't want to raise taxes. democrats think it's doing fine but we don't want to cut benefits. the opportunity is social security is doing a lot of things not very well. if you make it do those things better more efficient and more effective system. the second quickpoint although i think you want to look comprehensively at social security, if you look at it in isolation to the rest of the

budget you're missing something. the question i would pose is would you fix social security differently if we didn't have a huge deficits and medicare and medicaid? pretty obviously the answer to that is yes. you would be more open to revenues than if he didn't have the medicare problem. you have to think about all of this stuff together. how do we make these things fit? social security seems to be something where we ask upper and middle-class to save on their own in a medicare it's harder to do that. you can't tell someone to pay for it on health care benefits because of the insurance program so we have to think of as an integrated way as well. >> mr. biggs? >> i would just like to say couple of things. first of all something that could be done quickly is to raise benefits for new retirees today pensions and benefits at a relatively low cost. in terms of how we think about the longer-range story it's not just the bug it -- budget. it's about the economy. much of the shortfall we are looking in social security is

because of the redistribution of income. one aspect of that is social security faces a more difficult situation. the good side of that is that's money for people that wouldn't otherwise have been desperately need it. we have to hope for better economic outcomes. it's not just the budget but the economy and getting back to the issues of medicare and medicaid. we have had a sharp slowdown in health care costs. it's amazing how little that seems to be appreciated because that is made more differences in deficit reductions -- reductions than anything congress is likely to do in the next few years. that certainly affects the environment of how we think about social security and the governments liabilities in the long-term. >> senator casey the two things i would suggest one increasing financial education and guidance on making the ability to help people make quick decisions or complex decisions simple, that's the first thing. the second thing i would say from a behavioral decision-making standpoint the auto features that were

discussed earlier are very beneficial for improving upon those because they are proven to work when used effectively. auto enrollment auto escalation at contributing at higher levels in the default enrollment in the day funds all three features have been shown to yield strong results. >> thank you very much. >> senator wyden. >> thank you senator brown and i thank you for scheduling a very important hearing on it conflict that gets short shrift and i commend you for it. gentleman i am struck by how many folks come up and describe accounts that in variably get into the question of their pension melting away. they are talking about hopes and dreams that they had had for years essentially evaporating because their pension isn't going to be there. and of course there are a lot of pieces to this puzzle.

the reception is a factor, the aging workforce is a fact year. certainly it's hard to follow how some of the changes at the state level affect private pensions. there are host of issues that go into this mix but i'm also struck by some of the reports that saw him in the year, businesses and those in the retirement industry, seemed to be doing some wheeling and dealing with pension funds. we recently came across the work of "the wall street journal" reporter ellen schultz who apparently has done a fair amount of writing on this and she's not talking about all the businesses and all the people in retirement history but she is saying that there are some who have taken billions of dollars from pension funds to finance downsizing is and have sold the assets to merger deals. they have talked about how the

loopholes and discrimination rules that permit pension plans to be capped to pay in effect for executive payment arrangements, executive parachutes and things of that nature. they talk about the exploitation of new accounting rules which create an incentive to cut benefits and to cut and if it gets even when there was a pretty good argument that pension had enough money. and i was struck by this account and clearly this reporter, a distinguished reporter, in is not saying it's every business or everyone in the retirement industry but i would be interested and starting with you mr. bakertolerated.

we will start with mr. baker and then mr. biggs. >> i do think it is a serious problem. i do not think that explains the issue in terms of workers facing in adequate retirements. you have a number of instances where certainly people were violating the intent of the law. people are violating the intent of the law or violating the letter of the law. i can't speak to that the intent

of the law is once money is in attention is supposed to do in the pension. there are several accounts in which major companies were able to effectively pull money out of those pensions in order to finance a merger or downsizing or whatever you want to say. that should not happen so you know that requires greater policing, greater scrutiny and probably greater penalty so that when you can determine that someone has in fact violated the law then it's not just a slap on the wrist. you want to play game and see if you can get away with it you might spend some time in jail. i think that would make people more reluctant to do so. >> lets have some of your colleagues get into this, mr. biggs. >> one of the problems with defined benefit pensions which i didn't mention my testimony is it's very easy for a plan sponsor to not do the right thing. it's easy to promise benefits but nobody wants to pay for them. that's true in the corporate sector. it's true in the state and local sector. defined benefit plans are very

complex and they require all whole range of assumptions regarding what's going to go on the future to determine what you have to pay today. it is very easy to avoid doing the right thing. defined contribution plan is much more transparent. if your employers as i'm going to put x into your 401(k) this year they either put x in or they don't put x in. the monitoring is much easier. that doesn't say there aren't similar problems in 401(k)s. there's a recent case i believe is international paper where they were accused of essentially funding employee contributions into a fund that charge them too much. that sort of thing can happen and i think it should be punished but by and large i think it's not an explanatory factor in problems we have an retirement security today. >> lets do this. and i asked it the way i did because this to me really is what you and senator casey are

trying to do. this is the kind of fact-finding effort that we ought to be doing more of. ms. schultz is an award-winning journalist. she is not saying that this is going on at every company plan for every part of the retirement industry but suffice it to say, if you have the kind of documented examples here and you don't have enforcement against those kinds of instances, that certainly is an invitation to others to try and skirt the rules. mr. baker have you or any of those who have been navigating for workers done some writing on suggestions with respect to penalties and consumer protections for workers that ought to be put in place? >> i haven't written directly on this particular issue and i can't say and i imagine others have that i have to say i'm not familiar with it.

i do have to say i look at this as part of a set of malfeasance, i think in many cases criminal actions that were taking part in the financial crisis. as we normal's no one has gone to jail in connection with that in that raises a serious issue. the question of incentives that if people think they can violate the law and a very worse their company faces a modest fine you are not discouraging that behavior and we seem to understand that in another context. i don't understand why we don't apply to the financial. >> i'm way over my time. senator brownback you. i would be open to suggestions from either of you to and from other panel members because it struck me as an important set of issues that ought to be part of this debate. if you go to some academic setting and people are talking about the recession and talking about the aging workforce then you see people at a town hall

meeting and they talk about their pension melting away and they have questions about how that happened. i think we ought to be looking at some of those issues. sent thank you senator grounded. >> thank you treat senator nelson. >> mr. chairs and -- mr. chairman there's nothing like focusing the mind when you realize that you are facing a situation and a lot of americans don't face the fact of retirement until it's way on down the road and the question is, are we going to have enough money in retirement? have we saved enough? several us are sponsoring a lifetime disclosure act and it is a way of showing people what their savings with the like in

retirement as a way to get them to save more money today for retirement. so i want to ask mr. sweeney, you explain the innovative tools that fidelity has in order to show your clients what their savings will look like at retirement? and what else you think you need from the government to get people thinking about this so that they can adequately plan for retirement? >> thank you senator nelson. i would say two things. we develop a lot of tools that we make available to customers who work with it but also the general public. they can go in and assess their holdings with fidelity. we allow them to aggregate holdings to other firms. we think that's important because oftentimes we find two halves of the couple come in and one may have a plan but the fidelity platform and one may

have one kept another firm. both are gearing towards a common retirement and they want to see how the combined balances can be used to achieve those very goals. we recently conducted a retirement preparedness measure and calculated the readiness of people to take the accumulated assets and translate that into income stream that will generate lifetime income. that's an important disclosure. we are doing a lot to try to educate investors. they come to us with complex problems here at our job is to simplify those problems but the most tranquil factors are increasing savings rates particularly for young investors they live longer and less covered under pensions in the future. we think they're going to have to save more on their own. is there more we can do to get them to save and help people with conference of education will have an america that's better prepared for retirement in a future. >> what are the savings rates of america compared to other industrialized countries? >> you know we look across the globe and look at different

retirement system so for example australia has a mandated retirement system which people are forced to put into a private retirement system of their choice. the thing that is for hacks -- perhaps masked as they have higher death rates. we are not sure there is a causation there but some correlation so when we look across the globe we think there's an opportunity for people at all income levels to take some money aside and save. it's a very difficult decision for a young worker who is trying to put money in their first 401(k) and they say how can i save 10%? the comment i say is if i offered you your job at 90 cents on the dollar would use take the job? i would drive might car a little bit longer and make trade-offs that they would figure out how to live at 90 cents on the dollar. that's the decision priest investor to make. >> your particular tools other than aggregating all of their savings so they have a comprehensive view, what does it

basically due? you take their composite savings and then project at their retirement age how much that's going to give them each year for the actuarial length of their life. is that what it is? >> we have several different tools. i can simplify them into accumulation oriented and distribution oriented tools. we are planning tools and then we have investment tool so if you think of the simplest level by the accumulation i want to make sure i have accumulated a nest egg so i'm able to translate that into an income stream. for 25 year over 45-year-old they are more focused on accumulation with the dialogue we have for them. for 65-year-old it's more around managing expenses so we start with the expense hurdle that each retiree has to clear and look at that accumulating benefits they have through the d.c. defined benefit program social security and they say how

can you clear your monthly hurdle each month? we do want to plan beyond the actuarial life the actuarial lifestage for retirees. we find one quarter of the couple will live into the early 90s so planning for 87 is planning for a quarter for population to fail. >> let me just take a pure hypothetical. a person who is retiring at age 65 that has a salary in the range of $150,000. okay, see if you can interpret this for me. what basically is the nest egg of savings that they need to take them in their average situation of lifetime expectancy? >> we look at starting with accumulating nest egg of eight to 10 times their salary so somebody making $150,000 at at age 65 you would want them to be somewhere in the range of 1.25 $21.5 million.

it's a pretty substantial number >> and then that would pay out both principle plus interest over that actuarial life. >> correct but will we find his customers at the higher earning levels those hurdles they need to clear when they get to retirement are not as high for those people for a couple of reasons. a, we assume people at those higher income levels are saving. if they are saving 10 to 15% automatically i need to clear the hurdle of 85 cents on the dollar because i know longer need to save for retirement. if i paid off my mortgage that's another big, not that you don't have clear when he gets retirement cb ken to seeing, placement rates close to retirement ranging between 68 cents on the dollar were wealthier people up to ranges in the 90s for people who are at lower income levels. >> okay, thank you very much. you directly answered what i wanted to find out. thank you.

>> that's the purpose of the hearing senator nelson so good to know. >> there are some of us that don't answer --. >> i appreciate it. it's a very good panel. thank you senator nelson and we will do a second round of questions. i appreciate it senator casey's comments mr. romasco about your story. i would like to bring back the issue of retirement age and paint a picture of a couple of stories that are not as personal for me as they were for you but people that i have gotten to know. one was 10 years ago in a working-class city in lorain, ohio. i was then in my early 40s, early 50's. he was about my age. he had been a carpenter. perhaps a carpenter since he was 18. nonyep -- nonunion carpenters so his retirement was and is organized

and lucrative. lucrative is the wrong word that generous. nonetheless he had worked for 30 years and there were a lot of things he couldn't do now. he had trouble lifting things. he had worked outside. if you live on lake erie it's pretty cold working outside on construction projects. he was doing pretty well with this income but his body was breaking down. the second story. i was in need youngstown at a town hall and a woman put her hand up. she struck me as someone -- she said i've worked all my life and am now working two jobs. i'm 63 years old and then she said i have just got to live another year and a half so i can get health care. imagine someone thinking in their life, she had no insurance and i don't think she had been ensured much of her life. her goal was to be able to long enough to get health care. not a lot live long enough to see a grandchild or to complete some hobby or work a success or something.

i think when we think about retirement age we need to think in terms of personalizing in that sense but here's what i want to ask about. we know that gap of life expectancy, those two people i mentioned and i obviously don't know about their personal life expectancy nor did they put on the average they will did not nearly as long as those of us who dressed this way and have jobs like we have. we know that. we know that those same people, those two people and what they represent are much less likely than seven of us to have not just the leg on the stool of social security but also have some other kind of private pension, private or public pension in some significant savings. we also know a what they're doing and that is the increase in jobs in this country, the growth in jobs is mostly in low income areas.

fast food workers in health care workers, people who often don't have insurance. they will have health care fortunately now because of the aca most of them, but they also don't -- they are unlikely to say than i might it have any kind of employer pension or if they do it's not particularly -- so with all of that we are seeing people like simpson-bowles saying raise the retiremenretiremen t age and the serious people in washington on the talk shows saying we should raise the retirement age. talk that through. not just your position on retirement because you have pretty much made that but what do we do about people who are retiring, people that are low income, don't live as long. and they don't draw as much social security. people that live longer and have had more comfortable lives in terms of dollars are living longer and getting higher social security. how do we do with this in light

of low income workers. do you want to start with that? >> first of all we have to start with what the reality is. their average retirement benefit is a million dollars apiece. they should go to lake erie and go to toledo and talk to people and say all those that want to live on working thousand $500 raise your hand. i don't get a lot of takers for that. we need to ground people and what the reality is, not just the math at the reality. we have to be aware of averages. i think that's so important. i think you have sort of harsh the numbers correctly which is you know the average this than the average that. dean made a comment and andrew is well aware of this, there's a very uneven situation going on here where if you are white, well-educated and affluent who

are going to live longer and benefit more but if you don't happen to have those tools of those basic situations you are going to be challenged. as i said before younger workers have a one in three chance of encountering disability or not reaching retirement age because of some problem. that proportion goes up in communities of color. so let's get to the reality of the data out there. the second thing is i think we have heard suggestions as part of this conversation about retirement and not about deficit but retirement of strengthening the system at the low-end and we have to look bad in terms of the adequacy issue. the third is there is no doubt we can all do a better better job in savings and one of the challenges is what are the mechanisms that people in mr. sweeney's is this and some of the suggestions and are made to encourage savings and at the same time build on that foundational piece which is social security. it is the foundational piece. if we weaken that or limit that i think we have to face the

reality of what's going on. stagnant wages, pensions disappearing and savings under challenge. think about what we just had senator nelson and mr. sweeney. if the average income in this country is $50,000, that means people have to have $400,000 in order to take care of themselves what is the reality of that? the reality is the vast number of americans aren't even close. some art. good luck to them and congratulations. >> others on the panel want to respond to that? >> a couple of points. first off the point you made about the affordable care at is an important one that hasn't gotten enough of attention. there will be a lot of people like this woman that are struggling to go to work every day who now will able to get health care insurance and that's going to make a huge difference in their life which i am happy for and appreciate congress

voted for the affordable care act for that reason. the other point that they're these huge differences. people are in different circumstances and those of us in our suits with desk jobs many of us will work until 70 and many of us will want to. it's a very different world for most of the workforce in one of the things i was struck by if you read the bowles-simpson proposal to raise the retirement age they say we should carve out certain occupations and not raise it for them which i have to say i got kind of a kick out of because that was the thing that greece was ridiculed for when they have this huge deficit because everyone jumped on if you are a hairdresser in greece you could retire at 50 the rationale being they work with dangerous chemicals. i have no idea the truth about that that is the sort of things that bowles-simpson was proposing. that's a sort of thing wouldn't want to do but it believes they recognize the problem and i give them credit for it but it's not a good way to deal with it. >> anyone else?

speeches quickly and i think this goes back to the example of senator nelson and mr. sweeney had and the comment you made that well somebody making $50,000 they need eight times their annual income but the fact is they don't need a times their annual income and savings because they are getting social security. social security is a much bigger part of their retirement than it will be for someone making $150,000 per year. retirement planning is really complicated. it depends on what your income level is, how many kids you have had and are you single or married? is very easy to take these rules of thumb and misapplied them. i can't tell you off the top of my head how much savings somebody making $50,000 a year should have. it's not eight times their annual annual income i will tell you that for certain. the second goes back to the problem of the retirement age. back in the early 60's the lowered the retirement age from 65 to 62 for proceeds cicely --

precisely the reasons we pointed out. for those folks and i agree with you 62 is fine. the problem is it wasn't just those folk to retire to 62 but everybody who retired at 62. what do we do then? one idea to encourage people to work longer i proposal mandating the payroll tax for workers age 62 and over. there are technical reasons why you want to do it at the point is to give people a carrot as well as a state. >> that would mean that their monthly checks would not grow -- my understanding differences 63 and 66 and you get more few weight that the reason the 70 euro gets more is because they have paid in those -- >> that factually untrue. i did a study a few years ago looking at the 62-year-old who chooses to delay retirement for year and pay an extra year in

taxes. for each additional dollar of taxes a new retiree pace and they get to since back in additional benefits. >> don't do it between 62 and 65 or 463 and 66. do it so there's no penalty involved. is that the case if you retire at 66 versus retiring at 70 and you are paying into social security those four extra years because you're working mr. sweeney would you suggest that your retirement doesn't go up? >> your retirement benefit goes up solely a cushy delay claiming the benefit. it'll coast almost -- goes up almost nothing. the marginal return is essentially zero. a 36 fear is unlikely to raise your benefits by much or anything. second most women continue continued to get a spousal benefit so they work longer. they are not getting anything in exchange for their own taxes. if they work longer they

essentially get nothing. i was shocked when iran these numbers but when you work through the benefit formula is clear why it happens. affairs people for that people in that age range is to eliminate the payroll tax but it's also something the academic research indicates would have a real big response in terms of labor supply because these are folks who can work a little longer if you make it worth their while and it might help somebody who has a physically demanding job. they may say i don't want to be a walmart greeter or something like that but if you eliminate that payroll tax that becomes a little bit more attractive area that will stay in the work were so little bit longer. so it's the carrot as well as the stick in this sense. i understand some people need to retire early but a lot of people can and should retire later and the question is how do we encourage that? >> thank you. mr. sweeney do you want to comment? >> the primary basis on which we look at retirement plans so i

think of an example. i sat with the client in california and retired at age 62. he talked to a representative that is options any of 15 years left on his mortgage. he said i would like to take some of my assets and pay down my living expenses for the next three years i can take social security at 65. the representative said sir this is going to be challenging. you are drawing down a significant part of your assets. it was a challenging conversation buddy at already decided to retire. if we could have a conversation with people before they choose to retire he could have worked for another three years and then in a very good place. he could have downsized his mortgage and home and made his retirement much more successful. >> thank you. senator casey. >> thanks very much. i was looking at mr. baker your testimony on page two and really

startling numbers. a couple of segments of the population which when we look at the unemployment rates monthly are looking at poverty rates. the data you have here indicates that for senior non-married women the poverty rate is 16.3% by the official measure with another 11% near poor and in poverty. that's 27.3. the next category of african-american seniors is 28% and then i think the same calculation poverty and near poor for hispanic seniors is about the same, 28.2. this is just startling numbers and i think another reminder as to why social security is so important for folks across-the-board.

>> i appreciate your bringing that up. this gets to my point i was making earlier about how increasing benefits for those of the bottom can be very different. i would suggest if you were to raise benefits for people at the bottom 10 to 15% that makes a huge difference in their standard of living. these are people struggling to get high and the cost for them is very low. even though obviously i know the long-term projections for social security is affected little by raising benefits for those at the bottom. >> mr. biggs you indicated and i'm quoting benefits for low earners probably should be enhanced. >> i have argued for more far-reaching reforms similar to what you have in new zealand and the u.k. where every retiree receives a flat in a fit at the poverty level. the idea is you take poverty among seniors which today is 9% down to 0%. on top of that we need to sign

people up for employer-sponsored plans or iras or something along those lines. social security -- i'm not going to say it does not cut poverty. clearly it does. is it the most if it did -- effective and efficient way to reduce poverty? we can do better but it's not just by saying we need across-the-board increases in benefits. it's saying who's being poorly served and why are some people not receiving the benefits they should? it's the complexity in that formula. it bases your benefits on your lifetime earnings but a lot of other things other than lifetime earnings. other factors are more important than that so it is not a well targeted benefit. it's a risky benefit low-income people.

>> mr. romasco i wanted to commend you for doing calculations for states. page eight and i'm quoting in pennsylvania social security benefits supported 470,442 jobs, $70.9 billion in output and 4 billion in state and local tax revenues unquote. that's very helpful for us to have that information and your calculations will be used at another time. we are grateful for that because sometimes it's difficult for people and sometimes difficult for elected officials to clearly articulate the benefits in a broader-based way and we try to use bang for the above calculations all the time is one

we should talk about these issues. we appreciate that. mr. sweeney i'm not going to go through too many questions for you other than i should point out for the record senator brown may not know this but mr. sweeney went to the greatest undergraduate institution in the world, holy cross. >> with a name like sweeney that shocks me. >> i have four daughters mr. sweeney and i'm just realizing by your chart, when you indicate 78 to 80 i realize our oldest daughter is in generation y. and our next three are millennials. in the chart you have on gen y. it tells a lot and you have a lot of red there meaning their likelihood of saving is not very

high up on the scale. what would you say to both the gen y.'s and the younger folks and the millennials? what advice do you have for them? >> that actually surprises me. >> so i can tell my daughters. >> i would be happy to talk with them of as well as that's helpful. we were surprised to find the gen y. is so red because they had so much more time to correct the trajectory they were on. two things. >> explain red again. >> they were not on track to cover their essential expenses. two big drivers. they're not saving in enough but the second a driver is their goal post has further down the field in today's generation of boomers. they won't be covered to the degree that today's retirees are covered so they will have to solve more in their own and as we think about people living longer your daughters will live longer than your parents of the

timeframe over which they need to cover their own retirement expenses is going to be longer. those are the two biggest drivers of success and predictors and factors that we need to make sure that general i and the manila -- millennials understand today. that first paycheck we want them to the putting in 15% if they can. >> thank you very much. >> thank you senator casey and a couple of more questions. unless senator casey has another round and he can do it. otherwise we will wrap up erie at a number of you know these general statistics that last year of pew poll asked respondents if they will be enough money, asked young people if there'll be enough money to provide social security and medicare benefits at their current levels. 41% of those 18 to 29 said likely 36% of 30 60's 39-year-olds were answered likely. the line that young people and i

don't know if this is a survey but a lot of young people feel likely they will meet elvis pressley than they are to draw social security. not particularly funny i don't think that reassure us mr. baker that that's not going to be the case. >> i could give you two answers. what i offer to young people around the country at colleges who asked that, will you get social security and no one raises their hand. at some point we will stop paying benefits so let's pick a year, 2030 or whatever. we still have congress? yes. will we still have the military but we still have roads in i go your retirees are going to be twice as large as the percentage of the voting population as they are today. you think members of congress will vote to get rid of social security? most of them are convinced no. in terms of the data the short, it's easy to make this sound

very large and it's kind of the game that a lot of people washington play where they talk about hundreds of trillions. the reality here is that the short hauls are not very large relative to the size of the economy. the project shortfall in social security we are talking about a shortfall of around one percentage point of gdp, hardly trivial but on the other hand the wars in iraq and afghanistan we increased 1.6% of gdp. we have a much longer timeframe to adjust to this. with health care we do face large cost but that's basically because our health care system is broke in. we spend more than twice as much per person on average is people in france or whoever you want to thunder that makes. if we don't fix that whether or not we have medicare or medicaid we can eliminate the government health care programs we have nothing in our hands. if we do fix the health care system than the cost are usually

manageable and a very good news there is there is then a sharp slowing the cost over the past five years. i don't have a crystal ball and i don't know if that will continue but if that does continue than health care is going to be very much a manageable problem. again we can make the sound scary numbers if we express the shortfalls as a share of income. it doesn't make a trivial but these are expenses we have dealt with in many other contexts. >> thank you for that. let me ask a question of all four of you and we will wrap up with that. you have all testified about the challenges here. we have found areas of agreements and you have disagreed on some things that but you have laid out the challenges of the issues and the options pretty well. just give me a couple of minutes each. senator casey asked a question sort of a lightning round and he said this is lightning round square on short-term. what do we do now but take a

couple of minutes each on what a retirement system in this country should look like five years from now and what you would like us to work towards thinking that picture but they retirement system should the like. mr. sweeney why don't you start and we will go across that way. >> the education and guidance issue is of paramount importance. people say i need help. we have proposals that say we might limit the amount of guidance would provide based on the type of accounts that they are working with. we need to make sure that when we take a client oriented view we say how can i help you as an individual worker solve the multiple needs that you have read the second with the that we think these default auto enrollment features are incredibly successful and we want to do more of those. we want to build on the protection act and create another round of that which will put people in the right products, help them stay invested in equities in a

downturn in volatility. we have seen people who stay the course through the downturn in 08 and 09 aren't much better shape than those who panicked and pulled out. the more we can help people understand their timeframe over which they are investing is fairly long in the better we can do to get them and rolled save the raid and be well invested the more successful they are going to be. >> mr. baker? >> just a couple of points. with social security i think we can do steps to enhance it. the other point that i was making and i think we can set up a system of portable universal accounts voluntary but with a strong default contribution the key point being people can carry these place to place. they would have limited options and very low cost. there has been support in a number of states.

he came close to passing on several occasions but it was stopped by the recession. something like that would be good. basically it would remain as the mental vehicle for upper middle income people. one final point doesn't get appreciated, when people talk about future generations, we see huge fluctuations in asset rices that will dwarf the impact of the deficit and debt on future generations. when housing where prices fell by 30% that was bad news for and everyone who owned the house but it was a great for kids. the same story with the stock market. on the one hand is someone with a 401(k) says anyone investing tomorrow can expect a lower return. just a very simple story. traditionally if we had historic price ratios at roughly 7% overturn the stock market given ratios today you can count on

roughly five for the long-term. if i put a thousand dollars in the market today and keep it there for 40 years a 7% return would be at 16,000 the vibe are sent return with the 8000. people are worried about generational equity but they should be looking at the stock markets. it's bad news for them. >> mr. biggs. i would agree with dean and john really starting with enhancing savings done by folks through their retirement plans. the auto enrollment auto escalation in the things we talked about today. as the simplest and easiest way to ensure adequate retirement savings. we have done the research. we know a lot more about what goes into retirement savings today than we did 10 or 20 years ago. that would solve i really think the vast majority of the problems we face. if people just saved as they should, it's not just better for

them. it makes life easier for social security. social security dentist to worry about paying the big benefit of $150,000 per year. that's the first thing that is achievable today because it is bipartisan agreement on how to do that. in terms of social security itself need a more robust safety net on the bottom. dean and i may differ a little bit on exactly who he do that if we met ray that it should be a better safety net. a country as rich as ours shouldn't allow people to retire into poverty. i think we need to make middle and high income folks rely on themselves a little bit more for their retirement savings because the challenge of medicare and medicaid are still out there. >> thank you mr. baker. mr. romasco. >> i think what we have seen this morning is a broad set of ideas that deal with the retirement issue. i think it's in that context, we have to change the conversation as these hearings are designed

to do. let's look at social security. people need to understand social security. that's a step first because unless we can clarify that people will still have misconceptions about what it is and what is his and. those kinds of issues. we have to clarify social security. secondly we have asked the right questions. it is not about solvency only. third we have to look at the other two legs of the stool. i've heard a lot of suggestions this morning that we help people save more and make that virginal responsibility piece as robust as possible. until we come to a place where we put the conversation separately and we look at retirement as a whole understand the value of social security for low-income piece the adequacy peace piece in the social insurance aspect that we are all in this together throughout a working lives we will be dealing with a lot of unnecessary noise.

the clarification of that and is poured of the other two legs of the stool in terms of the reform in that context we can have a good conversation i have a lot of confidence we will have a good conversation. >> this is not allowed to end. i was just joking. >> i understand. i was just following the comments. >> first let me apologize. i was chairing the hearing on the subcommittee on east asia-pacific senate foreign relations committee. one of the challenges of the united states senate is they put you on a lot of committees instead of a lot of hearings. i think this hearing is very important and i think senator brown for convening this hearing and the importance of not just social security but private savings and retirement which is critical. then congressman portman and i

worked on these issues when they're in the house. it was interesting that during the most robust time of our economic growth americans saving ratios were incredibly low. in fact negative. we had a growing economy and at that time we were told don't worry about it because people were saving for their retirement through the equities in their homes. we saw what happened to that. i just really wanted to come by and thank the witnesses and the chairman. it is critically important that we not only preserve the strength of social security. it's the only guaranteed lifetime in haitian proof annuity that people cannot outlive and they don't have to check and see how the stock arc is doing to know what their retirement benefits will be. it's critically important that we preserve that. it's also important that we improve incentives for retirement savings. it starts with doing no harm on the tools that are currently available and told on that.

6 million americans have taken advantage of the saver's credit. you can strengthen that. as as been pointed out by the dialogue taking place this morning there has been a discussion about the need for middle income and lower income working families and how they can do better in their retirement. there's no question we need to do that. we found the way to do this is to make it easier for people to save for their retirement that the tax incentives are important but you need to put something else on the table. that is why employer-sponsored plans are important. where i work we have that. it's called the thrift savings and the federal employees take advantage of that he could they don't want to leave money on the table. and the saver's credit is money on the table. more americans have taken advantage of that because they don't want to lose the advantage for that because it helps them

stay. two factors i would mention that are important to strengthen these tools and that is americanamerican s make a lot of decisions by inaction. automatic enrollment programs work and not only people getting involved in the programs but also the default investment options which are sensitive usually to their age provides for the rebalance for their private savings plans. the second is that we were doing the incentives for private savings and retirement today i think we would have done it better job to put incentives than four a lifetime income options rather than the esa taking money out of retirement plans today. to me there are two areas that we should be looking at is hired these for improvements to our current incentives. i have one minute and 21 seconds

remaining on my first round that i still have four rounds after this so if any of you would like to respond i would like to listen to your response. >> thank you senator. when you talk about income for life we talked about longer life expectancies that people need to plan for an social security provides a great lifetime income benefit. we try and use social security model cash flows as a core foundation they need to build from their personal employee sponsored retirement plans. but the concept of private annuities for insurance company sponsored annuities we find 14% of americans have an annuity. the challenges i have to write you a fairly large check in exchange for an uncertain stream of cash flows. while people who own annuities find great and if it. >> lets point out that annuities are one form of lifetime income and there are other ways than private annuities but i guess my

point is it's easy to take retirement money and use it for other purposes. without penalty. i am all for having different types of savings incentives for college, for medical. retirement is retirement. and i think we should have had an easier way to protect retirement income to a person's life. people have outlive their savings so many times. they say i'm going to live to be 80 and all of a sudden i'm 90 and they are still active and they don't have income. there should've been a greater concentration on lifetime income rather than allowing them to take the money that has been an economic recession to buy a home or their grandchild needed money for school. there are other ways to deal with it. >> mr. baker you look like you are agreeing with me.

>> we have tax incentives in place to encourage retirement savings and i tend to think they are pretty weak in the sense that they are a tax deferral and not a tax deduction. in theory you could end up paying more taxes than they are at -- 401(k). i think the saver credit is a good idea but i also think more incentives to encourage utilization makes sense. i think there is never an area where an economists are more divided than annuities. the economic terry said you should annuitize all of your wealth and retirement. that's most efficient way of allocating your retirement income. almost no individual in the general public will annuitize. very few people want to annuitize their 401(k)s into defined benefit plans. if you give them the us choices of a lump sum they will walk away with. annuity turns you from the

millionaire into $50,000 year and no one likes it. to encourage annuitization could make sense. once people have and they will be happy with them but the initial decision to do it is a high hurdle to get over. >> i came back and listen to the chairman's closing comments. >> yes you did. thank you senator cardin. few in the senate no retirement issues more than senator cardin does. the full committee may have written questions and if you could get answers in the next week to us, i think the herring was a success in many ways because the debate should he about the issue of how to achieve retirement security. mr. romasco started with that and i think that's particularly important. these are not budget issues the way that they are issues of how to debate on how we do this especially for low-income

low-income workers in all four of you seemed when mr. baker and mr. sub won't agree that's the consensus. that means toomey and i agree so all kinds of things can happen. a special thanks to to all for u.n. senator cardin and senators toomey casey wyden and nelson and jennifer and my staff i'm really appreciative. the subcommittees adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

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>> when the senate starts back up you can see the live coverage from the senate floor on c-span 2. the communicator is up next and then marcia coyle and her book and then thomas healy and his book on the terror suspects. >> we will focus on the future of television this week. we talked with