Sen. Booker Joins President Obama to Announce New Rules to Protect Americans' Retirement Security

Press Release

U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., joined President Obama, Labor Secretary Tom Perez, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., at an event at AARP's headquarters today to announce new federal rules aimed at better protecting American families' retirement savings.

Most critically, the proposed rules would protect families from paying hidden fees on their retirement savings and hold all advisers who provide workers with retirement investment advice to a fiduciary standard of care, ensuring that all advisers put their clients' best interests first.

"While there are many advisers who provide fair and unbiased advice to their clients, billions of dollars of Americans' retirement savings are still being unjustly squandered because IRAs and 401(k)s lack the same protections as other retirement plans," Sen. Booker said. "It's common sense that those who are entrusted to provide Americans with investment advice should have a duty to put their clients first. Yet current rules don't require such protections and do permit hidden fees that cost retirees money. That needs to change. Today's announcement is an important step forward to ensure we enact policies that put Americans' retirement security first."

The rules protecting retirement savings -- written before the days of 401(k) and other retirement plans -- are outdated, resulting in bad incentives and bad advice that have cost American families saving for retirement billions of dollars every year, with some families losing out on tens of thousands of dollars in retirement savings.

Today, the President directed the Department of Labor to move forward with proposed rulemaking to protect families from bad retirement advice by requiring retirement advisers to abide by a "fiduciary" standard--putting their clients' best interest before their own profits.

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