indeed more just. keeping the promise of dignified retirement after a lifetime of work is not just a decent goal to fight for. it is the way to turn what could be a crisis into an opportunity for reviewed growth and national confidence. imagine an america in 2020 where every worker has strong incentives to save and plans designed to actually deliver a dignified retirement. with those savings flowing through the market to finance growth, entrepreneurship and job creation. imagine a country that knows that it can meet real challenges because it has just done so. that is what is solving our retirement challenge could do for america. so let's go from here to empowerment. let's set the agenda for change and retirement policy this year

and then drive it forward in 2017. thanks for listening. [applause] >> i know j stand before you and lunch but i am happy to take any questions for you. >> just an opportunity to talk about a book. it is called fixing the future and how canada's government worked together to rescue the canada pension plan. it is an interesting story and the same issue as the social security except we ended up with a situation where we doubled the contribution rate and built up

the reserve fund and stabilized the contribution rate. it is a fascinating story. you have to figure out the story. >> i think that is a great point. >> the way the public and the private sector have come together we have studied this to achieve the policy in canada. >> okay. thank you, everyone. once again i want to thank ida and the aspen institute. [applause] >> sunday, hillary clinton speaks at the mayor's conference in indianapolis. we will have live coverage starting at 4 p.m. eastern. and later, c-span's conversation

with democratic presidential sandusky candidate bernie sanders. >> this is something i would not only love to do but could be different from the kind of books that have been written about mcarthur in the past and the way in which to really rethink and reevaluate who this person was, what his real significance was, what his virtues were, and what were his flaws and what were the things that made him in many ways unpleasant and hated by millions of people. >> sunday night, we talk to the

author of douglas mccarther. >> he saw the future whether it was america's role in asia, the rise of china, the split between china and the soviet union n and the fate of american domestic politics. >> sunday night at 8 eastern on c-span's q&a. next cabinet secretary outline their policy to help former inkrserated people reenter society. and then a discussion on increasing retirement savings on americans. and then after that a look at the future of the pension protection act. now attorney general loretta lynch and the secretary of labor, housing and education talk about challenges facing formally incarcerated people when they reenter society. this is an hour.

[applause] >> good morning and welcome to the center for american progress. my name is carla martin. i'm the the vice president for policy. it is my honor to welcome to this exciting event. our lineup today is a real testament to the importance of this issue to this administration and to president obama. nearly one in three americans has some type of criminal record that creates barriers to employment, housing and many other pathways to opportunity. some americans with criminal records are even barred from casting a ballot which denies the right to participate in our democracy after they have paid their debt to our society.

the impact of these barriers goes beyond those previous convicted of a crime. criminal records are a family sentence. in fact, they have found that nearly half americans children now have a parent with a criminal record. study after study has shown that the barriers associated with the parents criminal record can severely limit the child's opportunities and lead to worse life outcome. by eliminating these barriers and providing the right tools to people with criminal records, we can dramatically increase the likelihood that they will remain crime free and we can put stability and success within reach for them and their families. at cap we continue to raise awareness about these issues. we have joined groups across the political spectrum to push for meaningful reform through a criminal justice system. we have been lucky to have such a steadfast partner and president obama. over the last eight years, the obama administration, including

our forecast this morning have led in a new direction on criminal justice issues. over the course of his two terms in office, president obama has granted more commutations than the past four presidents combined. in 2013, the department of justice launched the smart on crime initiative to promote fair initiative of our laws and work with local and state law enforcement agencies to build trust in our communities and develop smarter and more efficient tools for ensuring public safety. this morning, the administration is announcing more important steps to support the reentry of incarcerated individuals and help ensure success for their families. this work is far from finished. our broken system continues to devastate communities across the country. critical legislation like the sentencing reform in corrections act remain in limbo on capitol hill. every day the congress fails to take action more american families are swept into a

vicious cycle of poverty and mass incarceration. with bipartisan support on these issues, we have a unique window of opportunity to make meaningful progress and ultimately build a fairer and more effective justice system for all americans. it's a privilege to be joined this morning by four of our nation strongest champions for criminal justice reform. attorney general loretta lynch, secretary of labor tom perez and secretary of housing and urban development leon castro and john king. their leadership has been critical to the administration mission and we are honored to have him on the panel. the conversation will be led by darrell akin's and peer he is an advisor to the second chance portfolio of the bureau assistant peer he is a member of the federal interagency council and the first ever second chance fellow at the u.s. department of justice. prior to joining doj he focused on criminal justice reform issues and in 2014 he was

honored as a champion of change at the white house. we are thrilled to have all of them here today so without further do please join me in welcoming them. >> thank you for that warm introduction. i want to thank the folks at the center for american progress for hosting this very important conversation. to say that this is a surreal experience for me would be an understatement. sitting on the stage with for cabinet level officials talking about these important issues is a bucket list moment, if you will, for me. what really grounds it and makes it more surreal for me is that 20 years ago i couldn't of envisioned having this conversation you all. i was beginning to serve a ten year sentence in the alabama department of corrections for first-time nonviolent drug violation peer i went into the

department of corrections with the high school diploma and i came out with the high school diploma. the state of alabama wasn't as progressive as some states in post secondary education. i languished for three and half years. torch not enough for me i had a loving family to return to who wrapped their arms around me and offered me food, clothing and shelter to help make some rational choices. i went back to school to get my education and get my law degree. i developed a practice area that exclusively focused on the restoration of the human and civil rights where people would be in contact with the system. now i get to's share the stage with you. it has really been a remarkable journey but i really want to emphasize that i don't consider myself at exceptional at all. the only thing that separates me from the over 600,000 people that are released every year from state and federal prison,

the other ten to 12 million who cycle in and out of our local county jails and the over 70 million people with criminal records is that i had access to extraordinary opportunities. opportunities to be able to succeed and remake my life. what we are about to talk about today is this depth but your agencies are taking to expand those opportunities so more americans have more success stories. let's get to it. i'm going to start with the attorney general, my boss and we know that prisoner reintegration,reduction of recidivism is a multidimensional issue. not only do people need access to employment but they need somewhere to live, they might need identification, they might need connection to mental health so they can stay on top of their medication. these needs span multiple

agencies. how has federal inter- agency facilitated cross agency collaboration and how will that continue once there are new people in your seats? >> that's an excellent question. i thing it really goes to the core of what reentry is all about. one of the things that those of us at the department, whether we are working out in the field, have long realized that the impact of the justice system on individuals was a multifaceted layer. therefore when we talk about reentry the response needs to be multifaceted and multilayered. a lot of us started out looking at these issues years ago when i was a u.s. attorney under janet reno. this was a huge priority of hers and we looked at it from a position of what can the justice department do. while there is a lot that we can

do, the impact of what we have already set in place through incarceration and other measures really extends far beyond the purview of justice. the reentry counsel has been a successful collaboration in washington and i think it's because, it's a group of agencies, and i'm proud that the agencies on the stage are represented as well as others, they have put aside their main desire to be the leader and said what can we do together. how can can we look at the impact of the criminal justice system on individuals in a multifaceted, multi- layer role and what can we do can to impact that? what are some basic things we can do to move reentry down the line and make it real for people it's a combination of agencies who use both their convening power, their policy power, frankly the power of the thoughts and instincts of all the people who work for us here

at our connections to the field and it's been a very, very successful collaboration. some of the things that have come out of this are just talking about the barriers to reentry and what are literally the logistical issues they are. with respect to finding a job, everyone agrees finding a job is one of the highest barriers to having successful reentry life. someone has to really be able to come home and integrate in this society. when you talk to individuals, and one of the main complaints that people have, and we've had this discussion for years is just that inability to get in the door. the inability to even get in the interview and maybe you'll get the job and maybe you won't, but the ability to compete for it, in order to compete you have to be allowed in the arena. you have to be allowed in the room. so out of that, the eeoc has proposed the band the box

initiative as a best practice and something that the federal government has been tremendously proud to lead on in this and we hope that that will be something that will be adopted not only statewide but also throughout a number of industries. a number of industries have signed the pledge to do so. that has been tremendously helpful. so gathering all of that thought has really invigorated the discussion. it certainly has given me tremendous inspiration when i talk to sec. perez about how we are going to get worked up and running for people and i talked to sec. castro and king about education. also looking at some of the things you've done over the years, looking at these issues, my predecessor wrote to every state governor and asked them to think about the collateral consequences of incarceration. i was most tremendously proud to write a letter to all the governors during reentry week

and focus on the state identification issue. that's one of the things that the reentry counsel outlined as a real problem. again, through this collaborative process, the ways to solve that and it's one of those things where you think wide and people think of this before. it's one of those things that once it gets up and running, it's so successful in the idea that what we need to do is get federal prison ids either exchange for state ids or let them be part of the process in obtaining state ids but that's a tremendous barrier to reentry. if we don't have read identification, you you can't get into a government building. you can't get many government services. you can even get a library card if you can't show who you are or even where you live, for example. all the little things that people take for granted generate tremendous obstacles for people who are coming out of the criminal justice system. as you mentioned, in particular,

individuals who may not have been incarcerated but have been through the system in some way. they're less visible and so it's really a pervasive problem. we are getting a very positive response on the issue of allowing the federal ids to be used either as state ids or as part of the process. it's something we are looking forward to doing more initiatives like that on. it has been an incredibly positive collaboration and i'm glad that president obama made it a standing federal level initiative. it will live on this administration primarily because the force of the thought behind it are not going to be stopped. they are absolutely not going to be stopped. we are at a point where the numbers alone tell us that the numbers of people coming out both federal prison and state prisons but all of those numbers are people. they represent a real person. we are at a point in society where many of us are going to

know individuals who had contact with the criminal justice system either through our work, through our friends, through our through our family and we are going to see firsthand the challenges that they face. i think this initiative won't stop because of the thoughts behind it are not going to stop. >> thank you for that. sec. perez, i'm coming your way. part of the mission of the department of labor is frankly to put people to work. we know that people who have had contact with the criminal justice system, 7,070,000,000 americans, that's one in three adult americans have either an arrest or conviction record associated with their name. this can present tremendous challenges to being employed. what steps are the department of labor taking to help these people have a fresh start and get back to work? >> i certainly believe one of the best ways to reduce recidivism is to give people the skills to compete when they are

coming out of prison and get them a job right away. so one of the major tools that we use at the department of labor is our grantmaking facility and we've been doing that's in a much more coordinated fashion. i think one of the things that the president said from day one, some of the most challenging problems confronting america require for the effective and sustainable resolution unprecedented levels of interagency collaboration. we've imploded and we have one big standby. and it's a standby of opportunity. just yesterday we announced $54 million of grants and they are going to various organizations, some are recognizable nonprofits like goodwill and some are local workforce systems, community colleges, some are going to help adults and some are going to help juveniles. they are all predicated around the principle of partnership and making sure that we are all in this together so we can build upon models that we know have

already worked in communities across this country to make sure that people have the opportunity to succeed. another aspect of our grantmaking is that we have been growing and yesterday we awarded more grants to this effect and that is to build one-stop employment centers. i had the pleasure of serving a local government in montgomery county maryland. we were one of the first in the country and if you talk to the warden, it was a win win because it made the jail safer because we were able to put people, give people opportunities. you said if you went into jail with a high school degree you came out of jail with high school degree. that's not happening in montgomery county. we are upscaling people and giving them access to opportunity and this program has taken off. we now have over 30 jurisdictions across the country who are interested in this. our grantmaking authority has

been a very important part. a pulpit is also important because there are so many employers out there who understand that hiring people with a criminal history is not an act of charity. it's an act of enlightened self interest. if you go in marilyn, the largest private employer is john's hopkins. it's very good university and a great hospital to state the obvious. it's the most prolific employer of folks with a criminal history as the soon to be retiring president was here, he would tell you that it is an act of enlightened self interest. it is not an act of charity. he will tell you they have

measured this and folks who have a criminal history working at hopkins stay longer and by the way, there up and down and all around the echo system, x-ray test, phlebotomist, health professionals, health professionals, all around the food chain and it is the right thing to do and it's the smart thing to do. a big part of what we are doing is lifting up these employers who are doing well and that in turn helps other employers who are thinking about it. they have issues. when they have those questions, we are always nonjudgmental. we here here periodically, this person has a conviction for theft. i'm a little bit worried about hiring him or her. guess what. we have a toolbox in our workforce system put we have a surety bonds. we will insure you against that risk if something happens. we don't think it will happen. so the workforce system itself has built a lot of tools because i firmly believe and one of the basic tenets of workforce development in this country is you take the job seeker where

you find them. we have a lot of people who have daycare barriers to employment. we provide daycare. transportation barriers and we need people who have a criminal history and we take them and we've had great success. i've said this when i was coming in. we are a nation of second chances. and i firmly believe in second chances. i must confess that i have a very serious ambivalence about the use of the term second chance because i have met so many people who have your story and for so many of him, there really, really wasn't a first chance. so i continue to noodle over what we call this because it really, and so many cases, the work that we have been able to do in baltimore city, we need to do reentry of scale because so many people haven't had a meaningful first chance and that's what we need to continue doing. >> thank you for that. secretary castro, you heard in

my story the critical role that stable and secure housing played in my reentry trajectory. many people struggle with that. particularly folks who may have suffered abuse or behavioral health issues. they are falling in chronic homelessness and end up in a number of crisis whether it's emergency room, psychiatric hospitals or jail. that has a huge huge human toll on them individually and a huge public cost. one practice that we have found to be successful is permanent supportive housing. can you detail some steps that hud is taking in amplifying permanent supportive housing? >> absolutely, thank you darrell for moderating this and kudos to you for the example that you have set.

also for using your talents and your experience to motivate others to make their lives productive and make the most of that second chance. to all my colleagues, particularly when it commands our attorney general for fantastic work leading the reentry counsel. what you see here, and i think a secretary has mentioned as well, what's happening in the obama administration in an unprecedented way has been this fantastic across-the-board collaboration that i think answers your early question of what will be your lasting legacy of this administration. so we believe that housing is a vital part of an effective second chance in life. what you here are two things, number one that all these things

are connected, that's obvious but secondly, what you see out there in the united states is that there is a cycle that develops with people. folks who have been involved with our criminal justice system and that are reentering are at higher risk for homelessness and also at higher risk for getting back into the criminal justice system. the question becomes what are the policies that we can put in place in the investments that we can make that will put them on the right path and help them avoid either becoming homeless for getting back into the criminal justice system. there are two policies that we have seen in the housing realm that work particularly well to that end. one of them we are excited that we have a joint announcement today with our attorney general

and the department of justice and that is on supportive housing. we have something called our paper success, permanent supportive housing demonstration. basically, it says two things. number one, we have seen that the best way to avoid homelessness is to put people in housing. it's called housing first. not to make them jump through hoops and be in a shelter for so many nights or something else. get people into housing because that helps stabilize them if they are dealing with other issues. if they have an addiction or mental illness or some other condition, if they need a job, it stabilizes them. secondly, it's to give them quick access to the wraparound services and this is the supportive housing model. to get into housing that gives them access to wraparound services so they are more likely to get the help that they need to get a job, to deal with a health issue or a mental health issue and ultimately to put them

on that path. this is a special grant we believe because it is a paper success model. that means we are getting it out there in innovative ways that we can do this. if a $. 7 million, we are proud to make this investment and see what we find that can then be replicated in other places in the country and ultimately be able to measure with more precision because this is always one of the challenges for us on policy, if you would ask anyone of us in our department is how do you actually measure what works so that you can do more of that and put your money there and get the biggest being for the buck. i think it holds high hope to be able to determine that and for us, i think what we want to see ultimately is that we get a greater and greater percentage of folks that are reentering to avoid homelessness, that avoid

recidivism and get onto a productive path in life and that's why, when i started, you are great role model for that. your success story is what we want to see in so many more americans so we are proud to do this. >> thank you. secretary king, during my story i highlighted how going back to school and pursuing higher education really changed my trajectory. when i think back, i have to acknowledge that there was a missed opportunity. for three 1/2 years i didn't get an opportunity to pick up a book a book and pursue postsecondary education while i was incarcerated. what steps have the department of education taken to make post secondary education available to people who are incarcerated? >> thank you for the question. i want to thank my colleagues for their leadership on this issue and also think many of the community organizations that are represented who have been

working at this a long time and have been our partner in trying to expand educational opportunity for folks who are incarcerated or leaving incarceration. ... i think you're exactly right, that you're not being able to take courses what you were in prison was a missed opportunity. we see that all across the country and we have to acknowledge that the federal government made a mistake in the mid- 90s during the period of time when we were in a rush to mass incarceration. we made a mistake and congress chose to deny access to pell grants to folks who were incarcerated. without access to pell grants, we know the cost of higher education becomes prohibited. many programs that were offering educational programs on university campus, they shut those programs down in mid- 90s. so, we have been very concerned about this issue and have

experimental authority under the higher education act to be able to restore access to pell grants as part of an experiment together as evidence around what works in higher education for folks who are incarcerated. the attorney general joined secretary duncan and me last year in maryland to announce that we were going to conduct what we call our second chance pell project where we would allow universities to apply to be able to use pell dollars to support education for folks who were incarcerated. we know it has a huge impact on recidivism and it showed 43% reduction in recidivism. some of those programs are privately supported that are helping get bachelors degree and has seen recidivism rates as low as 2% in those programs because they are equipping folks with meaningful skills and opportunity. today, we are announcing the first set of universities that will participate in that second chance pell program.

we have over 200 programs across the country applying. we aren't announcing 67 institutions that will launch this program and it will benefit 12000 students. this this is in 27 states per the cost of the program will be about $30 million a year which is about 1/10 of 1% of what we spend on pell dollars pitted doesn't have any impact on the other students who are benefiting from pell dollars across this country but it will create a path to opportunity. the president has also proposed in his 2017 budget that congress reverse the mistake that was made in the mid- 90s and restore pell access for folks who are incarcerated. to me this is really at the heart of the question of the second chance. if we do criminal justice reform just with sentencing reform we won't have done enough because we have to make sure when folks leave they leave with the education and skills and the opportunity to have a job and

the opportunity to get housing and to get an id so they are able to be successful when they leave and a second chance pell will help further demonstrate that and will help us to persuade congress to make a change in the law. >> thanks, that's excellent. i'm coming your way and last saturday we celebrated father's day. i'm a dad of two daughters, one of whom is here come on out and let everybody see you. [applause] that's moderators privilege, proud papa moment, she's 23 years old and graduated from college and is working at the committee for homeland security and is doing great. she was too when i went to she was two when i went to prison. for three and a half years the parent-child relationship was severed and even "after words",

-- after words -- it took us a while to restore that relationship. there are many stories like that all around the country. what is the department of justice doing to facilitate that parent-child relationship and bridge the gap on issues that children of an incarcerated parents face? >> i'm so glad that this is the part of this discussion because i think it illustrates perfectly the interconnected nature of all the issues that we are talking about and the core of what reentry really is is helping individuals return home and truly returning home means getting back to your family and going back to the community, rebuilding those bonds and it means strengthening our entire nation but the core of that, the core of community really is family. something something that we had seen the tremendous impact of these numbers of individuals who are incarcerated and going to the system, on families, we are

at a point now where your daughters are not alone. about 2.7 million children in this country have at least one parent who is incarcerated. i will tell you all so that when i go to prisons and talk to people, and i was so proud to go with former sec. duncan and announce the beginning of this pilot program, we talked with a number of inmates who were themselves taking college courses at the maryland prison that we were visiting and they were not able to take advantage of the pell pilot because it was still rolling that out. i will tell you that every one of those individuals talked about the impact of their educational program in prison and how that had an effect on their relationship with children that were still at home. both from a sense of supporting their own educational needs and being an example, but also in terms of helping them understand how to be a better parent in all

of the things that are not in the books. the ability to connect, the ability to talk to your child, the ability to communicate about these issues, the act of going through the educational process and essentially pulling yourself into a different realm was opening up avenues of connection between men and women in prison who have made the same comment. when we look at the cycle that we see, which also is sadly that a lot of the youth who are currently going through the system themselves are young parents or about to be, part of reentry is breaking that cycle. it is breaking the cycle and the connection. i was actually at an alabama institution during reentry week and i taught with a number of men there about their efforts to support educational employment and their concerns and every single one of them also talked about the need and the desire to be a better parent. one individual had a child who

was also incarcerated in a different institution. the special challenges of parenting someone who's going through the system also, the same challenges every parent faces of not being listened to but the special challenges of connecting someone who's going through an incredibly different difficult. as well. what we see is that will we help individuals rebuild those bonds of family, you do break that cycle. you do come out with stronger families. you come out with people who are connected to their kids and you have young people who can look at what their parents have gone through as an example and something to learn from but also something that they're able to avoid. that's the goal. were looking at a number of ways to maintain the peer physical connection that people have with their connection while they are cars rated in terms of making visitor centers more kid friendly and often times people

are not near their families. there is a particular issue for women who are incarcerated because there are fewer facilities that handle female inmates and depending upon the nature of the crime, they may be in a particular part of the country that can be very difficult. it's challenging. it's challenging for any parent. you incarcerated mother a mother and you almost incarcerated an entire family in terms of the impact on that family and the bonds that your break. we are working to improve the video conference facilities there and have those connections so people can have more regular communication with their children. it's something the female inmates talk about. it's something that children of incarcerated parents talk about is one of the most important things that you can do. just talked your parents. just have that connection. talk about the things that are

going on, the educational programs that are going on in our institutions. the examples that people can be while they are incarcerated. the drug rehabilitation program that are going on so children can actually see their parents working on things and working on issues. it does translate. we are actually announcing today a 1 million-dollar grant solicitation to develop further programs to model ways to keep families and children connected while the parent is incarcerated, called safeguarding children of incarcerated parents. we are looking forward to the ideas and the concepts and the plans that we know this group will generate and other groups will generate and we are always looking to do more. that is something we are very excited about. i think it really goes to the heart of this conversation that we are having. i understand what they are saying about the term second chance. when i look at all the re-entry efforts that we are doing, i realize what we are doing in

many ways this helping people rebuild lives that they really weren't given an opportunity to fully develop before. these are the key central parts of people's lives, your identity and who are you and who gets to tell the world who you are? your home, your heart is the home of everything. your educational system your educational system and the connection to your children. that is what sustains people while they are away from them for so long, i'm sure you had that feeling and that's what i think will help a lot of people get through the challenges of reentry, having someone that they are doing this for. i think it's something that's very important to the department of justice in terms of not only helping individuals truly come home but also breaking the cycle of individuals going back into prison or their children following down that path. >> thank you. secretary perez, your career has spanned both in the justice department and now the department of labor. how has some of your past professional experiences influenced the way that you approach your work at the department of labor?

>> no disrespect to lou gehrig, i feel like the luckiest person on the face of the earth because i have had the opportunity to work at the justice department at hhs and now the labor department and a week after i got to my current job, it was the 50th anniversary of the march on washington. that was a march for jobs in a march for justice. it was the sanitation workers and just because i pick up trash doesn't mean you can treat me like garbage. i am a man, i'm a woman and when i look at the discussion we are having right now, there is an undeniable economic dimension to it. there's a public safety dimension. there's also a civil rights dimension to this because you can't help but go to baltimore city or do trait or other places i've been to, los los angeles and see the racial overlay and this issue. that's why, when i was at at

doj, one of the most impactful things that we worked on was we reached an agreement with the shelby county juvenile justice system because if you are an african-american and a young kid you were something like four or five times more likely to be transferred to the adult system than if you were white. so we need to use every tool in our toolbox and we need to recognize a few things right now. number one, all of the dimensions of this problem, the economic dimension is simple. present company excluded, the population is aging. we have to understand that who is going to support us as we age. we need more people with w-2 income who are going to support us so there's the economic dimension. we can't leave any zip code behind in that effort. then there's the public safety dimension and everybody here has cited the overwhelming data that

when you have these opportunities, you have a much higher chance of succeeding. then there is indeed, the civil rights dimension that is undeniable here. i think it's really important for us and i recognize this and this is in response to your question. civil rits and labor rights and housing rights, there all about recognizing the moment and seizing the moment. i firmly believe that one of those moments is right here, right now now. i can't help but look out the audience and seeing some folks who have been in the trenches for decades. when i was working for senator kennedy 20 years ago, when i had hair and no replacement part, he is one of the most understated people you will meet, but he is a hero in this movement. mark and i played a lot of defense back then. but now we have to recognize that the this is a moment to play offense. there is a recognition, a bipartisan bipartisan

recognition and it's the only tool in your toolbox, there's a hammer and pretty soon everything starts looking like a nail. that was the philosophy that ultimately pervaded our criminal justice policy decades ago. now there's an understanding that we have to take a different approach. that's why when they did what they did for folks in public housing, that is a much more sensible approach. john king was pell grants. you are exhibit a of about a million exhibits that could be put forward. what the doj is doing with state and local prisons and internally at the bureau of prisons to make sure that the department is a model and what we are doing now,

the unprecedented collaboration of the workforce system. we have to make sure, and i commend for what you're doing to shine a light on this because if you lose sight of the moment in time then you lose sight of opportunity and i think there's a tremendous bipartisan opportunity. it's not that often when you have the likes of the coke brothers and folks all in between coming together around that vision. that's what civil rights is about. it's about the collective power of we. that's what labor rights is about. that's what moving the ball forward is about. that's what democracy is about. i think the collective power of we in this setting is capable of doing remarkable things in every zip code for all the good reasons that relate to the moral and ethical imperative in the public safety imperative in the civil rights imperative. that's why think it's appropriate we are all here and i speak for many others, we

speak for many other colleagues who are on this team. it's an inside outside collaboration. we know we can't do it without help. we know we can't do it without the businesses out there in the community colleges and the other partner spread the good news is everybody is all in. >> thank you. secretary castro. [applause] >> it has been fairly well documented the barriers that a criminal record history can trigger for people and trying to get work. it's becoming more and more well-known that the same barriers exist with regard to housing. recently hud put forth some guidance instructing housing providers on how they should evaluate contact with the criminal justice system in determining whether or not people should have access to

housing. can you share more on that guidance to lay it out and maybe some eyes or talk about how you anticipate that opening doors to housing with people were records. >> definitely. one of the things that we have the privilege of enforcing is the fair housing act. this is a very special piece of legislation because, for generations, it has truly empowered folks to ensure there is a level playing field out there when so many goes into the market and they are trying to buy a home or they are trying to rent an apartment. i wish i could say that even though it's the fair housing act of 1968 that we have made all of the progress that we need to

make. we have not. one of the challenges we have out there is that too often, when someone applies for housing, let's say somebody goes into the rental market and they want to rent an apartment. the box that you have to check says have you been convicted or arrested and if you check that, you're out. they will not even consider you. you have housing providers and landlords that are just taking a whole group of folks because they have an arrest record or conviction record and they're setting them aside and not allowing them that opportunity of housing. so our guidance, the the housing providers is that basically, they have to come up with a more tailored solution than that. it is not enough to just say you're out if you have an arrest or conviction.

blanket policies like that don't have a place in our housing market. fundamentally, what we are saying is that how are folks going to get an effective second chance if you won't even give them a second look? if you just toss them to the side right away now, within the policy, when, when you say that, right away landlords legitimately ask, what do you mean, i can't say no to someone with a criminal record? in the guidance we said no, that's not what were saying. were not saying saying that you cannot deny somebody housing because they have a criminal record or that you have to take anybody who has a criminal record, we are saying there has to be a legitimate reason for why you are excluding somebody. there is a difference between somebody who was convicted of

theft 35 years years ago when they were young and somebody that was convicted of murder or a more serious crime very recently. there's a difference between somebody who was arrested yesterday and somebody who has an arrest record from many years ago. folks have to tailor their policy to take that into account it's generated a lot of interest, it will be a very useful tool in helping to ensure that folks get that second chance and on top of that, we are not stopping there. i see that is somewhat reacting, and we are also trying to be proactive. again in collaboration with the department of justice, we are doing something called the

juvenile reentry assistance program, j rapp and this is $1.75 million of grants that are going out to 18 public housing authorities so that they can work with legal organizations in their locality to work with young people who are teenagers up to the age of 24 so so that they can expunge their record so they don't face this challenge in the first place. states have different requirements for what's expendable and what's not. we leave that up to the state, whatever folks are allowed to get expunged but at the end of the day, we are going to have more young people out there who have that effective second chance because of this work and throughout the housing market you have more americans who may have had arrest records or convictions but they are hard-working and are doing what they should do and they're going to be able to get that housing opportunity more than they were

yesterday because of this work. we are very proud of this and this is at the heart of creating more opportunity and more prosperity for more families. >> thank you. secretary, you talk about the secretary, you talk about the failed second chance initiative and how that will open up opportunities for people who are inside to be able to get access to postsecondary education. the incarcerated population represents a fraction of the total number of people who have had contact with the system, who also face many challenges to getting postsecondary education. i know this up close and personal. after i graduated with my junior college degree, i applied to one of our flagship institutions in the state of california and was denied. i remember the rejection and the

exclusion that i felt, that no matter what i did i would never be able to overcome the stigma from my past. what is the department of education doing to make sure people with records who may or may not have had an incarceration experience have access to postsecondary education? it's a great question. the university lost out. it was a bad decision on their part. what we are trying to do is call universities to be more thoughtful and the claims that they're making about the housing market, we have universities have questions about an arrest record or criminal record and the use it in a blanket fashion did not even consider an application. we created a toolkit for universities that we call beyond the box suggesting to consider how they answer that question. the university of california doesn't use that question at all at the initial stage.

some are smarter about nearing the question to licensing areas where there may be collateral consequences that prevent folks from getting a license and it's important to understand at the onset whether or not someone pursued in that field would be able to work in that field and they can ask a more narrow question. some universities, after they asked the questions make unreasonable demands of the student or they asked students to get a letter from the warden where they were incarcerated, no no matter how long ago it was explaining what their behavior was like while they were incarcerated. there are these obstacles that are created to enrolling students that actually harm the university. we created this guidance and we also created a pledge for universities to commit to move beyond the beyond the box. we continue to grow that effort. mayor garcetti from los angeles

was actually with me to announce the beyond the box guidance at the event he said i think a bunch of other mayors should do the same thing. i'm going to commit to bring together all the universities in the los angeles area to talk about this and move beyond the box. i'm going to encourage other mayors to do it. he already has 21 other mayors around the country who have committed to this. so leadership like his, we can make real progress and if there's a growing realization on the part of universities that they're missing out on extraordinary talent by having these arbitrary barriers. >> thank you. we have about three minutes left and i want to give my panelists an opportunity for rapidfire where they would like to see reentry from their agency perspective. i will start with the madam attorney general. >> we are actually moving toward that. reentry begin sunday one of a

person's contact with the criminal justice system. we are looking to make our bureau of prisons one of our strongest centers for reentry by strengthening the educational employment as well as the family connection opportunities there in. we feel it's an opportunity that we have to connect with individuals and give them the opportunity to take advantage of these programs so that when they actually cross that door and the gates closed behind them, they can can actually step into the workforce. they can find a home. they can move forward with their education. reentry begins with a one. >> scale and sustainability. we are sustaining our efforts across our agencies by making sure our career staff are working on these things so they can be carried forward. i think that is the internal dimension of what we are doing. the external dimension of what

we are doing is what i often call the orchestra. we in this room, who are part of this challenge, we play different instruments. they have the sentencing project and other folks at different places, we play different interest instruments but we are in the same orchestra. we need more players in the orchestra. it's therchestra of opportunity. when we go and host events where hopkins of evangelize about why they do this and then you get other employers who are saying i want to join the orchestra, that is lightning in a bottle. so scale and sustainability, getting that orchestra to get more members. that's what it's all about. : how does it fit into what we are all doing the way that we've made this a priority, making this the priority of integrating it into that. secondly, for us to follow through. we can set out guidance. we can send that off to the world of the housing market but we really need to make sure

there's enforcement and that we follow through so that this is meaningful opportunity for folks. i think in the coming years if we can do those two things that will make a much bigger impact and we been able to make so far and making this a priority of integrating that. secondly for us it is foul proof. we can set out guidance and send that out into the world of the housing marth. -- market. i think if we can do those two things it will make a much bigger impact than we have been able to make so far as this grows. as this grows. show less text 00:54:06 unidentified speaker

>> two quick points, one one is juvenile justice, place or we've got to get much better at reentry. too often kids don't get quality education and don't >> i could do this all day. but we are at time and these busy folks have other important work to do. in closing i guess i would say i think part of my role in moderating this panel was to ground and connect the policy to the real-life experience of people who that contact with the system. i really want to besides the people part. african-american students are three times as likely to be suspended in pre-k and four times as likey in k-12.

that is why the president is focused on people of color and all students really. we are helping schools rethink discipline and making sure students are in class learning and getting the social and emotional support they need to be successful so we don't condemn to a harder life because of the choices we are making earlier in their life. >> i could do this all day but i will say in closing part of my role in moderating this panel was to ground and connect the policy of real life people and i want to emphasize the people part. when my parents came and picked me up from a maximum security

facility they were not picking up a convict but their son and a member of the family. all of these peoples are somebody's father, somebody's family, members of our american family and community. i think what we heard today is big important steps in opening the opportunity so everybody can pursue the american dream. >> thank you. >> good. great job. [applause]

..

it's strange fragility to believe that a woman to parker times bargain culture that has the very most again by selling and promoting and celebrating their products is the very host invisible when we think about guns. instead much of the political talk is exclusively about interpreting the 2nd amendment to the that the gun industry has become almost invisible.

the aspen institute financial security program hosted members of congress and investment experts to talk about retirement savings plans. this portion is on increasing retirement savings in the u.s.. it's an hour and 20 minutes. >> okay everyone we are back we are moving into our final panel the remaining challenges and we think that we got queued up in the last session. i'm just going to go ahead for those in the room, for those of you who have made grievance wardrobe heiresses my colleagues would say it potentially underdressed for such a chilly afternoon i would encourage you to move forward and cuddle up with the rest of the session.. that's the only solution i can offer at this point because as your digestion starts up your diet -- body temperature will get colder.

we are going to have a lively conversation appears i think i think you'll be really fine and we'll go through together. as jeremy said the first panel really did look at what wee accp accomplished, what is the passport and what are some of the big buckets of unfinishedn business. i'm here today with the second panel, long panel and a fabulous panel of folks who have different solutions to bring to the table that are going to address this difference gaps that we just started discussing. so i'm going to quickly introduce names and titles and everybody is going to have about eight minutes or so. there are number of pieces of information that our slides and some of them have printed copier those who would certainly make available to you if you areu looking for them in the future and at this point my phone is on not too tweet but to keep times

a week and have time for a robust conversation together. we are in order of presentation so first off we are going to be hearing from mark iwry senior director for hope policy the u.s. treasury. to his left, his right anne lester at jp morgan management and i will say more about them as we go through to name. be we go through to name. headed institutional adjustment solutions and ceo of credential bank and trust at the prudential insurance company. besides jamie is diane oakley and last but not in the least is

derek dorn ahead of regulatory gauge meant policy at tiaa so we are going to first hear from mark who really i don't know that there times there's one person that encompasses more of a different experience with the different phases of reform and advancement of the american venue, very much a part of tpa o as it came to be and since then mark has been incredibly essential and a lot of the other dances that have been mademinisi during the obama administration toward some of the gaps we will be discussing so not only was in the tpa but the recent creation of times of my ire raised the expansion of automatic 401(k) features that have happened over the past decade spending retirement innovation at the state level something he's been incredibly supportive and working on, promoting lifetime income and retirement plans helping to facilitate a wreck apposite into law and tax

refunds attacks time and so i'm going to sit ask you to just put your own reflections on the table mark and to talk about some of the solutions that you think are the most important ones in the next set of reforms. >> is great to be here in a trooper conference. very fitting to convene this group of experts to take stock in her situation on the tenth anniversary of the retention protection act but also to be provocative not because the tpa was the main driver of the automatic 401(k) revolution and plans to sign come it was a meaningful factor as we all know but probably not the main driver in the case of auto and romance auto escalation asset allocated default investments this isn't the tenth anniversary. it's the 18th anniversary.

treasury and i are asked this month 18 years ago issued guidance that first defined auto enrollment and approved it for 401(k) plans and we included in that a 401(k) example with a 3% default contribution and employer match, no employer stock in a default investment that was times was a balanced and diversified balanced fund. i we had the advantage of having a master promoter to showcase this ruling in a speech that month. president bill clinton at the saber summit -- saber summit in june 1988 highlighted this guidance and by the way it'sit times is hard for me to forget that classic clinton

administration timing, 4:00 a.ms call with his speechwriters trying to explain what automatic enrollment was and how to describe it. of course as always the speech turned out really well and he was great but i barely got there on time. you know the new policy of auto enrollment was slow to catch on. it was. lonely if you are promoting it the first couple of years. they went to the thrift savings plan tried to persuade them is the largest 401(k) type plan in the world, to use it. no dice, not interested at thatm time. we went to that big investment firms, financial providers, consulting firms. if you were interested in principle but most of them at that .1998 and 99 had the

question what's in it for us? plex employer groups likewise. kind of a nice idea but we don' want to be the first or second or third to try it. after a while they times we continued to issue rulings thatt indicating that it was okay to not just limit yourself to 3%. for 57th could do this, state and local sector etc. and eventually as we know they started to get a little more uptick, a little more takeoff among employers and eventually the organizations who are now great champions of automatic enrollment, automatic escalation etc. began in 2000, 2001 to take an interest. what also happened times

o ppened was a few phonecalls from the hill. congressional staff to remember calling up in 1999 a year after we put this out saying you knowc there's this thing called automatic enrollment. have you heard to that? yeah i think we developed times developed this whirling developed this ruling and that issued it and we are trying to get people to do it without too much success and they said you know actually to be very candid my boss thinks it's a great iden and wants to get some credit for it so how do we get in on this? that was the genesis of the pta, 401(k) provisions obviously not times not the defined-benefit funding provision. i said my first concern was that congress not do anything to inadvertently kill the golden goose here but would keep an eye out for any useful legislative steps that i'd help promote auto in rome and then of course eventually the preemption of state laws by arrests of thater

might otherwise constrain auto in rome and, the provision allows people to retroactively unwind get out of auto enrollment if they didn't realize that was what was happening to them. the other pta provisions resulted. we'll ultimately saw about a third of large 401(k)s taking up auto enrollment with the rapid increased. of increase just before ppa. once ppa was enacted to course it augmented in an important way that's spread of autouto enro involvement then got us up to something like 1/2 of the larger 401(k) plans. now you have been talking about the unfinished business.

in the case of tpa we were focused on one of our two main agendas and that is produced patient, people who are eligible for an employer plan orha employers that are willing to sponsor plan and how to fillll that out and make a plan stronger, increase the participation. and diversified investments as a default etc.. the other agenda was not a tpa issue by and large. it was the main unfinished business still left over from erisa coverage. how to get the one third or so of american working families into the system when they didn'e have access to a plan and they didn't have an employer who was willing to sponsor a 401(k) or a pension or anything else. and that is of course still

unfinished business for all of us. the administration has its broad coverage proposal. the president has put it in each of his budget to automatic enrollment at iras in the states have now started to take that proposal and enacted at the state level. oregon, connecticut, maryland, illinois and this summer potentially california. others potentially next year. david john at heritage and i am brookings had developed this automatic ira with the thought that we could get bipartisan and cross ideological support and indeed we did including notable republicans and democrats in the senate and in the house cosponsoring the legislation but when obamacare place and their

relations crossed the aisle became a little more fractious and difficult this was a bit of a casualty and it became increasingly difficult to maintain that bipartisan spoke spoke -- cosponsorship in the states are now moving forward as the president indicated as long as congress is acting on automatic ra -- iras he has expressed support for the states going ahead and doing it. we have been supportive of expanding coverage in a dramatic way and one way or another so i think i and others that share the concern that we not end upco with a fast conflicting welter of requirements in different states that don't go together

and up applied to interstate employers which was never the idea. those that have a plan that would not be affected by the automatic ira proposal. i would love to talk about it and am passionate about the topics of my colleagues on the panel are going to discuss the lifetime income, the importance of that, the open -- the desirability of making the system more effective for minorities and people are traditionally left out and other ways to make the existing system work better. but i would like to remind usal all, made sure we don't lose sight of the fact that the existing system also needs to be expanded to cover the people who have been left out and that agenda still needs to be

addressed. as a footnote the treasury has gone ahead and meanwhile at a demonstrated level with the much more limited initiative. by ira either do you met chintz and this is not intended to be the solution to the coverage problem but to be another measure to chip away at the problem of tens of millions of our fellow citizens not saving at all. the idea is to have a roth ira with a single investment, very simple, no choices on the investment to make, no fees for the individual or the employer if the employer uses payroll production for this. this, voluntary employer and individual level and a very basic way to get folks who might be risk-averse to dip their toe in the water and start in the

starter account or educator accounts, start to say if for the first time and hopefully the developer lifetime habit off saving and exit from this once they reach $15,000 balance into the private sector of savings, an environment environment that most of the rest of us are in. so i doubt i will stop there. easier and let you get your wish i'm actually going to let panelists ask each other questions at the end of this, and i think that's going to generate some really interesting conversation. >> great. >> one i have for you and then we'll go to anne is you've talked about creating the myra, and you've talked about coverage being that piece that really is the standing out as the mission that we have to address. your initial concept with david john back in the day was really a three-part series many some ways.

there was myra was a piece of a package that would both expand coverage and adequacy in some ways for small dollar savers. so can you paint out the picture of kind of what that, what that looked like? it was -- and you've done a lot toward direct depositing, right? a kind of refund into an account as well. so i just wonder if you might paint that full picture for us briefly. >> yeah. i think david and i were trying to, excuse me, to build success on failure. we took a bunch of failures and put them together. first, auto enrollment which, of course, is now a success. but as i was saying, for the first several years it was an awfully slow grower. we took payroll deduction iras, and this is the most apt point relative to failures. so this was 1999 or so. treasury, and we got labor to join us, put guidance out

saying, you know, employers, if you're not ready to sponsor a 401(k) plan -- which we continue to wish you would do and encourage you to do or a pension plan -- at least let your employees save through your payroll system by letting them use the payroll deduction that we all use for our 401(k)s or 403bs and save in a tax-favored account which you, employer, don't have to create or oversee investment of or have a trust for. just make it an ira. employee owns the ira, it's his or her money, they can take it, the government can't take it away from them, and the employer doesn't have to contribute. you know, we'd love for you to adopt an erisa plan, a full-blown plan, but if you're not going to do that, you're a small employer not ready, at least payroll deduction iras sound like a really easy, no-erisa, no-tax qualification rule, minimal compliance

solution. we put it out there, and it was like a tree falling in the forest with no one there. i don't think there were a hundred of those in the entire country. maybe now there's a few hundred. maybe there's a few thousand. but it's de minimis. it was a complete flop as an idea. we did discuss the question, should it be required of employers that don't sponsor a plan. and i was the first one to say, no way. let's, like everything, try it out on a voluntary basis and see if it works, you know? requiring things should be an absolute last resort. well, we tried it, as david john and i discussed when we were working up our proposal. we tried it for a good eight years, and we might have gotten, like, one or two a year of these things. so we then decided, okay, let's require payroll deduction iras only if employers that don't have a plan.

you have a plan for anybody in your work force, go in peace. but if you don't have a plan, let's at least ask you to let employees use your payroll system to save. and that's where that came from. we required it of employers above a certain size, ten employees, been in business for more than a couple of years because it hadn't worked as a purely voluntary option. and the employer doesn't have to contribute, doesn't, even can't contribute. because if they're willing to make a matching contribution, sell 'em a 401(k) which is what we really want. this is just a fallback, the payroll deduction ira. so we took those elements, combined them, and our thought was diversified investments would be the default, you know? the target date fund kind of approach.

if need be, if an employer or small business doesn't want to choose a private sector investment partner to do this since we wanted the investments to be private sector investments, private sector iras, then we wanted a fallback. and so we thought that a u.s. savings bond, a retirement bond could be something that an employer who wants nothing to do with this could just send the money to. but then with the idea that it would be moved into the private sector relatively quickly so that the money would end up in the private sector, and we would not be building a government program except as a transitional incubator for the accounts that are so small that the private sector does not want them and cannot break even on them. so, ida, that's the basic answer. >> thanks for the background. and i want to use that as a transition to anne who i want to thank for being here.

anne lester, who i've had the privilege of getting to know this year, is head of retirement solutions, as i mentioned, for global investment management solutions at jpmorgan asset management. i'm going to go way back for you a little bit and say after your tour of japan as a fulbright scholar, you ended up here in d.c. for several years staffing the senate government affairs committee. and only then did you move toward jpmorgan asset management where you've been for almost two decades, really working at the forefront of some of their innovations like the smart retirement strategy that give -- looking for ways to give workers who participate in private retirement savings system the tools to save adequately and sustainably. and that's the charge to you with. we heard something of what mark said, the thing that the pension protection act did focus on was participation and plans and getting that up. but you've got a lot of ideas about the adequacy within those plans, and so i actually wonder if we might ask you to flush out that part of this solution

framework for us. >> absolutely. and i just want to say thank you so much for having this event, hosting it and making sure that, you know, i like to think about the parts of the ecosystem that need to be involved in a conversation, and we need providers, we need government officials, we need folks representing the individuals to come together and figure out how to make this better. the other thing i would say, and this is something that we have been spending some time on with our team, is thinking about the things that are longer term in nature which i think a lot of these conversations have focused on, you know, changes to policy, changes to regulations, changes to law that we could all work towards. but also within the scope of what has already been done, there is enormous room to have some relatively low happening fruit that we can -- low hanging fruit that we can really move needles on. so i'm going to spend a little bit of time talking about that today, and that is in no way meant to detract from any of these broader discussions whether it's access and ways to

get employers who currently feel it is beyond their time, talent or interest to get those plans offered in the workplace or other, other proposals. so if we just quickly -- and i know we've all sort of reiterated versions of the same story, the problems that we face, right? low savings rate, broadly speaking for many parts of working population, inadequate savings although we would echo what our keynote speaker referenced as many people have, in fact, accumulated adequate balances when they've had access to those plans. but by no means, not everyone. this is really important. we've been surveying individual participants, and only 38% of them feel like they're adequately prepared for retirement. and it's not necessarily just about the money. they don't know what to do or how to do it. so this is something i think we can help with. and then finally, again, as part of that 60% of americans have not sat down and figured out

what their number is. they don't know what the shape of the problem is going to be more -- for them. so when we look at what we can do immediately, today -- and there's already been extensive discussion around the savings rate, right? -- we have the tools, the ability at our disposal to encourage employers who already offer plans to think about increasing their auto-escalation rates. there was a question, i think earlier to you, jack, about plans that have various caps and floors. as we talk to plan sponsors, very, very few plan sponsors even take auto escalation above a 3 or 6%. so it's a relatively small handful that actually go up to 10%. that is something they could all do today. and secondly, think about how the money is invested. again, i think we saw some statistics earlier saying how much better things are for participants who have defaults,

if they're very young workers getting out of 100% cash, if they're older workers maybe getting out of 100% equity. and for those participants who have been defaulted or chosen, a qualified default investment alternative, a target date fund, a balanced account, a managed account, we see enormous progress. but that is a relatively small number of individuals even today. and so what i want to do is draw people's attention to some statistics that we can share with you. again, based on a survey that we recently did of plan sponsors. so how many plan sponsors, and this is across all sizes, have adopted automatic enrollment? 45%. skews very differently in the large plan market where it's more like 80%. but in the smaller plan market, still a lot of work to do there. automatic escalation, only 31 percent. so that's even harder. and then finally, when we look

at being allocated appropriately, half of those who have automatic enrollment do have a target date fund. however, only 7% have gone back and said for those employees who started before we started automatically enrolling people, you know, what do your investments look like? and are you adequately invested for the goal you're trying to achieve? and the answer, again, is very, very few plan sponsors are done that. -- have done that. and we think that's the easiest thing to happen today that is most likely to be met with a positive employee reaction out of all the things we're talking about. that is something that every plan sponsor who decided to could get done in the next 12-18 months, although their recordkeepers may have a line of people at their doors. but it is definitely something that is within their power to do immediately. so when we think about why people aren't doing this, right? half of plan sponsors feel confident that their employees have an appropriate asset

allocation. half. only a third of their employees feel like they're appropriately invested or know how to adjust that in time. so there's a gap there already. and then when we look at that fraction of participants who have chosen to manage their own asset allocation, right? who are picking their own investments off the menu and, again, in many plans this is the bulk of participants, as many as 70 or 80% of a population, most of them, 80% of them, in fact, are outside of the stock/bond ranges that many target date providers would indicate. this happens to be plus or minus 10% over ours. most people follow a similar path. so you could quibble about 10 or 15% here or there, but you can see this looks like a shotgun of allocations. and, in fact, there's a distressingly solid line at the top and bottom of this graph, if you can see it. and it's in our paper which we have outside.

a lot of people have 100% stock or 100% in cash regardless of their ages, and we would argue that's a really bad idea. so what can be done, in fact? why haven't plan sponsors taken the next step and done something about it? well, 14% of plan sponsors thought they would do it, talked about it but decided not to because they thought they would get too much pushback from their employees. on the other hand, 83% of employees say they think it's either neutral or a good idea. and, in fact, of the 16% of our respondents when we did the survey who have been through a re-enrollment, 73% of them ended up in a qdia or target date fund. so either because they weren't paying attention and it happened to them and then they went, well, i guess that's okay, or they actually chose it themselves. so, again, there's a really big disconnect i think between what employers are worried about possibly because the people they tend to hear from are a very

vocal minority of individuals, and the reality of what happens. just a quick story before i wrap up. we work for a very large plan sponsor in our target date funds to who put in target date funds and re-enrolled employees in october of 2008. and you may recall that was a rather momentous time in the markets. we went to visit them in january, so we were still sort of in the middle of the financial crisis and the ec equity markets falling, and i said, so, how does it feel? you took all of your employees, this is maybe 50, 60,000 people, and put them in target date funds, and look what happened. and they said, well, it's interesting, we haven't gotten a single phone call. and then the plan's sponsor said, you know, i do feel terrible about those older workers, i lose sleep over it. i said, believe me, i lose sleep over that too. and as we were walking out, his

junior staff person pulled me aside and said, you know, for every person that you took out of 100% cash, we took five times that number out of 100% equity. i wouldn't lose any sleep over that. so it's an interesting thing to look at, right? when you try to do these solutions, it's not going to always be the best thing for every single person, but we do think you have to look at on balance how does this play out. and it's a difficult thing to look at but an important one. 28% of plan sponsors have not thought about a re-enrollment because they thought their overall asset allocation was appropriate. 80 percent of participants are misallocated. the average participant only holds three funds out of a menu that may have as many as 10, 15 or 20 selections. there's no way those people can possibly be appropriately allocated. so, again, there's a big disconnect in the data, and many plan sponsors look at a pie chart showing their overall asset allocation. maybe they look exactly like a

balance fund. but any individual participant looks nothing like that. so, again, we need to do a better job as an industry of presenting the data that looks at it from the point of view of the individual participant, not the plan or plan sponsor, because those lenses are very, very different. so just to close up, and i'd like to sort of end this where i started, to say i think we collectively bear a huge honor and a responsibility to try to make this better, and i think it's just so encouraging to be part of this conversation with, i think, the people that need to be helping to create better solutions whether it's within the framework of the existing, you know, rules, regulations and practices that exist today, and i think there are a number of very specific things can be done or on a longer-term strategy to come up with policies that will really help give more access. and, again, i think that is probably a theme i would echo. the biggest problem. but certainly, within those who already have access make it

better. so thank you. >> thanks. thanks, anne. i mean, it strikes me there's two, two aha moments i'm having listening to you. one is when i think about what's happening in the states and any place really, when the effort and focus of so many is on getting legislation passed or getting a new plan in place, the main thing is getting over that hurdle and having it. but then there's this assumption -- and i think we have the same thing. i come from more of the assets field broadly, how do you help more low income households build wealth. we think about savings. oh, we just need more people to save. so a lot of the coverage focus ends with we just need people in these plans. and i think what you're done here is digging into the level of that is the tip of the iceberg. it's a huge tip, and it needs to be addressed. but as you think about solving the coverage plan as ore others -- what do you think the next step people should be thinking about in terms of the context -- [inaudible]

you're bringing in more and more people who do not have an investment mindset into retirement savings plan coverage, what would be your next step thoughts about how do we have to begin engaging a wider set of people to understand the investment decisions? >> so i think it's interesting. again, during our keynote we heard that because people feel like there are professionals be they're in a qdia managing their assets, they're less likely to react emotionally when there are headlines like the sterling falls. i was up extremely early watching the markets this morning. so that's part of it, making sure people feel safe. and it's all about reorienting the definition of success and the definition of risk. so i think we tend to define risk in very convention alwayses, and we translate it in -- conventional ways, and we translate it, well, it's this up and down thing that's driven by this constant information field, but we never put it in the

context of the goal that you have. if your goal is a 45-year goal or a 90-year goal or an 80-year goal depending on how life expectancy goes which is a little disconcerting, if your goal is that far away, we shouldn't be defining it in terms of the market did x or y today. we should be defining it as are you saving enough, are you staying invested, are your asset returns outpacing inflation, right? what can you control, what can't you control? you can control how much you're saving. many people, not everybody. back to your comment about different income levels. i think there's a whole other conversation about income adequacy and how you help people carve out what already doesn't feel like enough to save for this other important goal. but put that in the context of other kinds of risks. and i think we in the financial services industry and in the way we've all been trained to think about the problem, the way our reports report -- again, i would look at the reporting that we provide as a key source of you

sort of ask the wrong question and you get the wrong answer and you frame it the wrong way, and suddenly you have a conversation that's unlinked to the real fundamental issues. so that's a big one. but i think it's also stepping backing from -- and i think the industry and the pension protection act was a huge help here -- has significantly moved away from trying to get people to feel empowered as their own investment adviser. and that that was a huge step. but, you know, it's complicated. you know, i would just say savings is more important than anything else. if people don't save enough, nothing, no investment strategy will work. so that is absolutely the most important step. >> good bottom line. thanks. so now we're going to turn to jamie who, as i mentioned, is the head of institutional investment solutions and the ceo of prudential bank and trust with prudential insurance company. jamie is not only known for the level of expertise in his writing and the issues he talks

about with coverage and adequacy and guaranteed income and pensions, but for me, jamie stands out for his passion and for the generous way he shares his knowledge and time with the wide range of stakeholders that anne was just talking about to help all of us get on the same page if we don't take up the unfinished charge. so, jamie, i'd love to invite you to talk with your data on some of these coverage issues and some of the solutions going forward. >> thanks, ida. >> thanks. >> on the tenth anniversary of the pension protection act, we can celebrate all the work that mark and others have done on automating savings at the workplace. today, the vast majority of workers at medium and large institutions are automatically enrolled and savings in default investments and are moving

toward a secure retirement. but more can be done. four things in particular. we can expand the level of automation. as anne mentioned and as our keynote speaker mentioned, we can start the level of savings higher and escalate it higher. we can get more people enrolled in qdias. we can, second, expand the level of incentives for low to moderate income be families in particular. expanding the tax savers credit and making it goes it bl -- deposit bl, directly deposited into retirement accounts a as a match. i want to talk mostly about expanding coverage. and the fourth item that we should touch on, too, is income. and i know derek will be talking about it. i'll touch on it in just a moment. on coverage i want to talk about it in three ways. i want to talk about why expanding coverage is important. i want to delve into a particular option but also give

credit to the other options that are along the way. and then i want to give a forecast for is this something that's possible in the near term. so why is coverage important? because55 million american workers -- because 55 million american workers, half of them don't have access to retirement plans. and so who works at those small businesses? it's those 55 million, 5.6 million workers, 55 million americans, they account for $2 billion in payroll. and they don't have access. 30 million of them are women. and women in particular have distinct needs around financial security. they feel like they are less prepared, according to prudential's research. they don't have the tools, and they depend on the workplace for help. there are 22 million people of color at at the small businesses that need financial security for

all the reasons that were talked about earlier. so a solution -- and i want to, before i talk about multiple employer plans, also want to give credit to and acknowledge the importance of the auto iras and the myra solution as well. mark and david have done just tremendous work on a bipartisan basis to think about solutions that make a difference and that are now being imitated by the states because we have not made progress at the federal level. but there is another option that we're getting greater bipartisan support on as well. and let's figure out how do we deploy all of these solutions and see which one the marketplace accepts and responds to tackle such an important public policy issue. and that concept is a multiple employer plan. so why don't small businesses offer retirement plans? primarily because of cost; that is, they can't cover the fixed

cost of setting up a plan across so few participants, across so few workers. and the cost is comparable to a retail account. the other challenge is fiduciary responsibility. small business owners are personally liable according to the prudent man standard underneath erisa. this is an important safeguard that makes a lot of sense. but it scares away small business owners. and then the administrative hassle. so what do we do about this? we can put in place something like the auto-ira which is outside of erisa, has lower savings limits but is very easy to administer and has a lot of appeal because of that easy administration. a complementary solution is the multiple employer plan, one that allows small businesses to pool their purchasing power and act like a medium or large institution. the proposals that are underway

in congress by senator hatch in partnership with senator wyden, in the house by many members as well, allows small businesses to overcome the commonality of interest requirement that is right now unaffiliated businesses cannot pool their purchasing power. the proposed bills would allow them to do that. the proposed bills would also transfer fiduciary respondent from the individual to a -- responsibility from a the individual to a professional to allow the trust to make decisions around investment lineups in process, and the small business owner would be responsible for just remitting deposits on a regular basis. it also would make the maul business -- the small business owners instead of joint and severablelyline liable, just lev rabblely liable. severablely liable. the opportunity set for doing this is tremendous. when small businesses hear about the potential for this, those

that don't offer it, 68% are now interested in offering these sorts of solutions. we see the opportunity for take-up to be great. and, in fact, there are substantial benefits to multiple employer plans. it covers within erisa not losing fiduciary responsibility having been done by a professional, reducing the administrative hassle. a useful alternative and complement to an ira approach. and so we see -- although they're not aware of it yet because it doesn't really exist, there's an opportunity when they hear about it and that they like the benefits. i'm going to stop by talking about income. it's not enough to the give access to savings at the workplace.

the purpose of savings is to generate lifetime income. think about it if you were planning on retiring on -- next week on july 1st. think about the panic that you'd be having today and last night. should i postpone retirement? prudential's recent survey, we find that 77% of participants crave, crave retirement income solutions. and retirement income solutions can work in conjunction with qdias and target date funds. they can protect against sequence of rush risks -- return risks as you leading up to retirement because they translate the pool of assets into lifetime income that's measurable and predictable and allows people to retire on time. lots more benefits, i'm sure, that derek will be talking about in just a moment. >> thanks, jamie. i was going to ask you -- my question would have been if -- i'm going to use the metaphor if you wave your wand and open up for a possibility now, you know,

we've talked so much about auto ira. you're saying 68% of small employers are really excited about this opportunity. so the question is, do you think that the automatic enrollment and the auto ira ideas are complements? do you think they're substitutes? would you say a little bit about that? >> i think that -- well, automatic enrollment, automatic escalation, default investments are, could be part of a model plan design within an open mep environment. an ira is a model plan. every ira has the same set of rules no matter which institution you go to. one concept that we advocate for within this multiple employer plan concept is for the irs to write a model plan design that includes all the best practices around automatic enrollment, automatic escalation, reduced only really hardship loans. and what that would do is that would increase competition just

based on price, investment performance and service. that is, you -- the fiduciary might choose a different set of investments, there might be a different scale, they might choose a different service provider. but like an ira, if you were unsatisfied, you could go to another provider, and the rules don't change along the way. so i think that the ira solution is very administratively easy today. the open mep solution might have better purchasing power over the long run because it's a larger group of people investing. it also could operate underneath the 401(k) deduction rules which would allow greater contributions. iras, group iras are well known and their simplicity and ease of use have a lot of advantages as well. most of the states are going down the ira route not because of the -- not just because of the simplicity and certainly not

because of the lower limits, but because they're not -- they don't want to be covered by erisa. they don't want to be erisa fiduciaries, the states don't. so there's a real challenge and set of trade-offs there. >> i think that's helpful e louisation. and, again, you guys are going to be asking each other questions, so be thinking about -- you know, not too hardball, but the ones that'll help the audience as well. diane oakley is a wonderful -- and aye gotten to know her very well over course of working at aspen over the last year and a half. she's the executive director of the national institute on retirement security. and prior to that, and i think you began that role in 2011, so you've been there a few years now. you served as senior policy adviser or to north dakota congressman earl pomeroy who is himself a real leader in retirement work and also on tax and social security and financial services and work force issues. and then i think really before that you were in the industry

yourself and served 28 years with tiaa cress now known as tiaa and a lot of the work that they've been doing. so a lot of experience. and you've come here with a lot of perspective, but you're doing a lot now to focus not just on coverage, but on adequacy. and in some ways you're combining those things in terms of your focus for low and moderate income savers and the retirement system. so that hopefully sets you up about the presentation you'd like to give today. >> [inaudible] for a member of congress at the time that we passed ppa, but i did have that privilege. i will say that my boss ultimately voted against the bill for different reasons that weren't being discussed today. but in terms of what we did with the pension protection act when

it came to incentives, the tax incentives because mr. pomeroy was on the ways and means committee, we looked at two things. one, basically, going back to tax changes that were enacted from a bipartisan discussion that became part of ectra. they were created in 2001. they increased the contribution limits, created the catch-up elections for individuals over age 50, and for the first time -- this was momentous. it was 2001 was the first time that congress actually enacted a tax provision specifically targeted at increasing the savings for low and middle income individuals. and that has become known as the savers credit. those two things were enacted in 2001. the savers credit was given a six-year or five-year trial

period, so to speak. it was going to expire at the end of 2006. the extension of the income, of the increases in contribution limits and the other changes that were in there to increase retirement savings expired at the end of 2010. and so one of the things that was done and, actually, was the bulk of the revenue -- again, when you're in the tax committees, you look at where is the revenue going. but the bulk of the revenue that was expended in the pension protection act ended up for retirement savings. and a as you look here, i went through the budget score for the pension protection act, and about $36 billion went to raising the contribution limits. now, roughly in 2006 about 5% of the taxpayers who were contributing to plans were limited by those limits. on the bottom side of the scale, when you look at individuals who

were eligible by income for the saver's credit at that time, 2006, there was about 25% of individuals eligible for the saver's credit as a non-refundable credit. if the credit had been refundable, the group would have been larger. it would have been about 43%. so 43% of the taxpayers at that time could have been eligible for the saver's credit by income. and that ended up with about a $10 billion cost, roughly about a billion dollars a year. but when you look at the total distribution of the tax incentives that we have in the tax code to encourage people to save for retirement, one of the things we know because our tax code has higher tax rates as your income goes up, the bulk of the tax incentives go to the top quintile of income. and, in fact, only 2% of the tax

incentives go -- the overall tax incentives go to the lowest income quartile, another five go to the second income quartile and another 9% of those tax credits, which are roughly a little -- in the most year it was about $150 billion for 2015. the saver's credit has been pretty consistent at about aing billion dollars a year in terms of tax revenue going to support retirement savings. and i think lolo actually did a fabulous job outlining why it's important. our own data at nirs, we know only one in five households in the lowest income quartile has any type of retirement savings available to them. when we look at retirement accounts' access, only one and two in the second quartile.

you really don't see income quartiles with more than that until you get to the top two. when we look at pre-retirement households, these are people between 55 and 64, when we look at their median savings for all households, not just those households that have accounts, this is a shocking number. most people said that can't be true, but it is. it's $14,500 when you use the data that is available through the federal reserve survey of consumer finances. that, in essence, is about the average benefit for one year that someone will get from social security. when we look at households of color, the median savings for households of color is zero. so that means the household at the 50 income quintile has nothing saved. if you look at households who saved at least $10,000, you'd

end up with roughly one out of every four households that are black, one out of five for latinos having at least $10,000 saved. and we also know when we compare the level of savings even among those who have accounts that households of color have account values that are one-fifth of the value of accounts held by the white population. so, clearly, we have key populations. this is just looking at those categories. we recently broke it down by women. women is another important category. so we have the saver's credit. congress extended it in 2006. they also did two other changes. they indexed the income limits. when the saver's credit was created, it was limited to households that were earning -- if they were a joint filer, it

was $50,000. if you were single, it was 25. that got expanded and indexed through ppa, and to that today -- and so that today if you have a married household income level of $61,500, individuals can use the saver's credit. if you're single, it's half of that, it's 31 or something, 750 or something, i think, is about what it is. so if you look at those two things, those are where the saver's credit limits are. when you look at the group using the save's credit -- so we've indexed those limits, and that's positive. the other interesting thing is we have finally started to see an increase in the number of households or taxpayers using the saver's credit. since 2006 the data we looked at from the irs tells us that an additional 2.2 million families -- so we currently have about 7.4 million families, taxpayers who use the credit.

they've used the credit. the median -- the average credit is -- [inaudible] and that's $5 more than it was in 2006. part of this is limited, people that don't have the resources to save that much, but they are willing to say it. the one other data point that really concerns us, and this gets to the structure of the credit, is the credit is structured as something you have to file a tax form to get, you have to actually file a long tax form, so you can't file a 1040-ez tax form. individuals who take the earned income tax credit, another tax credit geared towards the same income population, that credit can be filed on a 1040-ez, making it much, much easier to get. and then there's also another form, i are, s -- irs form that you have to