Miller: New Administration Proposals Are Welcome Help for Middle Class
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today the White House’s Task Force on Middle Class Families unveiled new proposals to help strengthen the middle class by helping families struggling to pay for college and save for retirement. Several of the proposals, including an initiative to further reduce student loan repayments and new protections to provide workers with greater transparency and disclosure on their 401(k) style retirement plans, build on bills championed by U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-CA), the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee. Miller issued the following statement today:
“These proposals are welcome news for the millions of families whose retirement and college savings were devastated by the financial crisis. The painful financial insecurity facing middle class families is not new – the previous administration seriously eroded progress workers and families had fought for decades to achieve – but it has become much, much worse in this economy. We cannot rebuild a strong economy without rebuilding a strong middle class, which is why for the last several years the Education and Labor Committee has been laser-focused on recovering and growing our middle class. These proposals to make repaying student loans more affordable, to encourage employers and employees to do their part to strengthen workers’ retirement savings, and to help protect those savings from Wall Street middle men are an important step toward this goal. I look forward to working with the Obama administration and Congress on these and other initiatives that will rightly put the interests of Main Street and hardworking Americans first.” BACKGROUND
STUDENT LOANS: The administration’s proposal to cap borrower’s monthly federal student loan payments at just 10 percent of their income builds directly on a new program, called Income Based Repayment (IBR), which took effect in July 2009 as part of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act, a law Miller co-authored. IBR currently allows students to cap their monthly loan payments at 15 percent of their discretionary monthly income and forgives their remaining loan debt after 25 years of repayment. Learn more about Income Based Repayment.
RETIREMENT SAVINGS: Miller has also been a lead champion of protecting workers from hidden fees that could be eating deeply into their retirement savings and from conflicts of interest from their investment advisors. He is the co-author of the 401(k) Fair Disclosure for Retirement Security Act, which will provide workers with clear and complete information about the fees they are paying to help them make the best investment decisions for their future retirement security. The bill was approved by the Education and Labor Committee in June. Learn more about the 401(k) Fair Disclosure for Retirement Security Act.
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