>> this country was built on free speech and continues to thrive for the same reason. this video wouldn't have been made without it. being afforded the right to be able to ex ourselves at home, at work, at school, at the grocery store or anywhere at any time, it cannot be more american than that. good luck watch every winning student cam documentary online at studentcam.org. money" weekly "your segment, the topic of retirement in retirement savings. our guest serves as the director for income security and other issues of the government accountability office. new team recently put out a report looking at how americans are doing when it comes to saving for retirement. what did you find? >first of all, it's great to be here. guest: this is an update of ,eport we did several years ago and we found that basically, things have not changed.

basically, that's not really great news because we found that for households age 55 and over, considerable numbers of them really don't have a lot of resources for retirement. 29% have nor, retirement savings and no defined benefit plan or traditional pension. that is cause for concern given that if you are over age 55, you don't have a lot of years to get ready for retirement. segment, separate phone lines, we are splitting them up by those who are working , (202) 748-8000. and those who have retired, (202) 748-8001. define an american household. guest: they may be related or unrelated individuals under the same roof. it's a pretty standard definition by bls and the major

collectors. host: why do it that way rather than every individual and try to break up the data? guest: one could look at individuals but, ultimately, we felt that households are a more relevant unit to look at because it gives you a more accurate perspective of the resources that people can draw upon. as they age. report, therom the percentage of households in 2016 that had no retirement savings, create percent. int compares in 2016 to 52% 2013. 29% of american households had no retirement savings and no defined benefit plan. had a defined benefit plan, but no retirements living. among those households who do have savings, do we know how

much they're saving, how well-prepared they are? guest: it was simply an update of some past work. we did not look at the median account balances. but a lot of research has been done recently, we don't have the numbers here. they are not that high. even if you have $100,000 going wantedtirement, if you annuity with that, it's going to be maybe a couple hundred dollars a month, so it's really not a lot of money. in the past, we found that a lot of people had no retirement savings at all, and by that, we mean savings either in world one k -- in 401k. they may have a defined benefit plan, but those tensions increasingly are disappearing in the private sector in the united states. there is some cause for concern. seen what sectors have

workers lose pensions, or where are they being offered less? guest: throughout the private sector. there are more and more employers not offering traditional pension. the public sector, they are still pretty common. a number of them are under financial stress, but in the private sector they have been rapidly disappearing. in many cases, they are replaced by 401k plans. people still have the opportunity to say with those traditional pensions that they receive annuity for the remainder of your life. they are just really out of favor among employees. host: the report we are talking about, most households approaching retirement have low savings and update to the 2016 numbers the last time they did this report in 2013. you just explain how this report came about. guest: as you know, the

government accountability office where the investigative -- we are the investigative arm of the u.s. congress. we are required by law if we get toequest for information respond to those requests for information. we received this request from senator sanders, who was the ranking minority member for the senate budget committee. updates for previous work he had done in 2015. host: is there some bright news in this report? 48% of american households had no retirement savings, but that is down from 52% in 2013. guest: you could look at it that way. somewhat, but they really have not changed that much. there are some opportunities now. both the house and the senate are looking at some pieces of legislation that they think will encourage the formation of new pension plans.

other things will make it easier for americans to save for retirement. host: we split our phone lines up a little differently in this segment. (202) 748-8000 if you are working. (202) 748-8001 if you are retired. let us know how you are saving for retirement. we want to hear your stories in this segment of washington journal. chadwick is up first in denver, colorado. retired. know, i thought the private sector would handle this a lot better. why is part of the reason 39% are not able to retire. because they are not managing their money correctly. socialism to a lot of because it's a bigger problem than the information states because medicare and medicaid are basically hedge funds or retirement accounts because we don't have enough work in this

country. at setting a retirement account, so this is definitely a situation where there needs to be a market correction. more and more private involvement, more education in private sector on retirement, it would be better for this country in the future and more productive. it's time for this country to get more responsible. why is part of the reason retired from the military. i worked hard and i was rewarded for it. this is how it works and we get -- we need to get back to the principles of working hard and being conservatives, so we all can retire one day. host: how long were you in the military? caller: 40 years, i served from 2000 2005. know,for those who don't

can you explain what retirement benefits are that come with that service? caller: yeah. basically, my dad served, he retired after 20 years and the type of retirement i have, it's a medical retirement. oif and in the veterans isack, like a neglected tax code. you get compensation and pension. if you get hurt at work. there's a lot of opportunities. you can retire after 15 years and you can buy time. my retirement was due to medical, and i know a lot of people are there.

i mean, starting working from that age, it would be kind of sad not to have something to show for it. host: thanks for sharing your story. guest: first of all, thank you for your service. i think one of the issues that a lot of people in congress are concerned about in their retirement communities in general are how to encourage more employers in the private sector to offer plans. there is legislation now to make it easier for private companies to offer those plans, and you are right to, just offering a plan is not enough. you need to get individuals to actively contribute and save for retirement. regarding some of the government programs, you raise an important point. a number of the programs in social security and down the road are facing financial challenges by 2035.

social security will be only able to pay about three quarters of its promised benefits and congress is looking at bills to restore the solvency and integrity of social security programs. you are right that a lot of it today, it really is incumbent upon individuals and for employers to give workers the opportunity to save for retirement and for individuals to take advantage of that opportunity. host: illinois, kyle is in the workforce. go ahead. guest: -- caller: i have a question. i have watched the show and i have seen a friend of mine in card, ithis medical was a bad show in the justice system. i watched my grandmother of 96 he tortured and murdered by a morgan county justice system where the lawyers made money. is, we are trying to make a living. it seems like, to me, the

government, you retire and the government takes money from the retirement that you've already paid taxes on. i mean, the price of living does not go down. always getychecks taken more and more from the electrical, from anything. numbers, i can make them out. old, i've never voted, i finally registered to what myause i have seen country is becoming and i'm scared. host: kyl in illinois. one of the topics he brings up is how far retirement savings can go today, and how you plan for that. can you speak to that? guest: there are some real challenges here. we know that while wages have not been growing for the past 20

years, there has been a lot of stagnation in that regard, they have gone off somewhat recently, but there's a lot of demand on people's income. people have to pay for their children, they have to pay for housing, and basically what remains is there often is not a lot to save for retirement. this is a real challenge, something that we have to take a look at. health care continues to be one of the really big areas where a health shock can knock a family, really put them at risk for losing everything. often, we have done some work in the past looking at hardship, a family illness, andajor they have to take money out of their 401(k) to pay the doctors. you are absolutely right. there is a lot of stress here, and it is very difficult for a lot of families to save for

retirement. host: what is phased retirement? guest: it is a little different. when you hear america is aging like the rest of the world, for example, we have over 10,000 baby boomers each day going into retirement. companies areis losing a lot of skilled employees, and one of employees with two shall knowledge, they are losing their best welder or their last programmer. retirement is an idea to encourage those workers to stay on for a little bit longer, and it also includes a mentoring or a knowledge sharing component that the worker will work with the more jr. workers, share with them the information, specialized information that they have built up over the will, so that the company continue to be productive in the future. host: are these legislative

efforts to encourage them to stay in the workforce longer? guest: in the united states, they really aren't legislative. they have been in some industries around the country, they have been very popular in academia for many years although, in many cases, they have really been trying to get workers to leave early rather than to keep them longer. in 2016,federal level a regulation was passed that all federal agencies have to create a phased retirement program for their employees, so at the federal level, they are really looking at this and depending on the lessons learned at the federal level, it could offer important implications to the private sector. host: back to illinois, phil is waiting. caller: good morning. i have a question about the number of people that have savings for retirement. is, are theseon people that can afford to have

savings for retirement? because, if you look at the , don't quite a few people, maybe 50%, pay little or no taxes? it's not surprising that people don't have retirement savings. well, first, it is true that it is hard to save for a lot of these people. what happens very often, they may be contributing to their plans, but they may have credit card debt, they may have other expenses outside, so they may have money in their account. and also build up this debt what happened later on, you will have a hardship or that money will come out. regarding taxes, absolutely. taxes are an issue. maybe not the income tax for many people, but certainly payroll taxes. a really important aspect of

i think more than the tax burden, is the fact that we have not seen a lot of wage growth over the last 20 years. and so, that is changing a little bit now. that is really problematic for pie that have a larger they can divide the slices up among the different needs that they may have. host: coming back for the latest 48% of american households have no retirement savings but included in that area percent could be households that have a defined benefit. but no savings. some criticism of that from the american enterprise institute, andrew biggs wrote excluding traditional pensions from retirement savings, he said i can't see why the headline number would categorize this, most of whom are public-sector employees with generous rs,sions, as non--save

especially when that limited definition has already caused confusion. if you look further down on the table, found that there's a number of people who have no retirement savings and no defined benefit plan. i think that's 29%. host: the same as 2013. guest: that's correct. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2019] >> we'll break away here and take you back live to the house floor for a series of votes. votes will be taken in the following order. motion to suspend the rules and ass h.r. 19 and pass h.r. 1331 and agreeing to the speaker's approval of the journal if order. the first electronic vote will be conducted as a 15-minute vote. remaining electronic votes will be conducted as five-minute vote. -- votes. pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20 the unfinished business is the vote on the motion