SECURE Act Gets Fast-Track Treatment in Congress

The House Ways & Means Committee has advanced the “Setting Every Community Up For Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019,” or SECURE Act, making the move less than a week after the bill’s formal introduction.

The vote by the Ways & Means Committee clears the path for full House consideration of the sweeping retirement reform legislation, which has subsumed many provisions of the popular and bipartisan Retirement Enhancement and Savings Act of 2019. Industry experts agree that RESA and now the SECURE Act represent the most significant potential changes to the U.S. retirement system to be debated in more than a decade.

Like RESA, the SECURE Act contains popular measures to help Americans prepare for their long-term financial future by expanding opportunities to save for retirement in tax-qualified accounts; increasing access to lifetime income products that enjoy fiduciary protections; helping savers make informed decisions about the optional annuitization of assets; and otherwise enhancing automatic enrollment and escalation features of workplace retirement plans. The SECURE Act further includes provisions to remove restrictions on small employers’ currently limited ability to band together in a multiple employer plan (open MEP).

In voting to approve the bill for full House consideration, bipartisan members of the committee said they are optimistic about the legislation’s future.

News of the SECURE Act’s House passage comes on the same day that Senators on the Finance Committee reintroduced a version of RESA for their chamber’s consideration.