The White House. Credit: Matthew/Adobe Stock
The Insured Retirement Institute has an idea for the designers of the TrumpIRA.gov website and matching contribution program: Let annuities in.
Wayne Chopus, the chief executive officer of the annuity community group, said in a comment posted Thursday that IRI welcomes efforts by President Donald Trump to promote increased savings through a new executive order.
"We appreciate the administration's decision to expand opportunities to save for retirement without creating a new government-run program," Chopus said.
But IRI would like to see the initiative "expand access to protected, guaranteed lifetime income solutions, such as annuities," Chopus added.
"These solutions are essential to helping workers and retirees address the real risk of outliving their savings by providing a sustainable stream of income throughout retirement," he said.
What it means: IRI thinks it's possible that the federal government could provide matching contributions for annuity buyers, or at least list annuities on the TrumpIRA.gov retirement product comparison website.
The backdrop: Trump signed and posted the new executive order Thursday.
The order does not mention annuities by name.
The order does say that the U.S. Treasury secretary should set up a TrumpIRA.gov website that will list "high-quality, low-cost" individual retirement account options, including "life-cycle or targeted-retirement-date options," "balanced funds" and "funds that are designed to protect principal on an ongoing basis" and that maintain overall net-expense ratios under 0.15%.
The order directs Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to help retirement savers use the Federal Saver's Match provision in the Secure 2.0 Act.
The provision lets an eligible saver get up to $1,000 in matching contributions from the federal government.
Allison Bell can be reached at allison.bell@arc-network.com.
Credit: Matthew/Adobe Stock
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