In addition to making state budget adjustments, state lawmakers approved new policies to influence personal financial planning for people who work in Washington.
Lawmakers passed Senate Bill 6069 sponsored by Sen. Mark Mullet (D-Issaquah) to expand access to the Washington Small Business Retirement Marketplace and require employers who don’t offer a retirement plan to facilitate employee participation in a state IRA. Impacted employers will be required to set up automatic deductions for workers unless they opt out of the program. Proponents of the bill say it may apply to more than one million workers statewide. Legislators heard different perspectives on the proposal during testimony.
“I work hard to offer competitive pay and benefits to my team members, but it’s a struggle to annually research and put together benefits. If this bill, 6069 were to pass, it would take a lot of time, a lot of stress off my hands and my employees would get access to this great new benefit,” said Travis Rosenthal.
“Other states’ experience indicates that many employees will opt out. And even those that opt in, many will contribute very little and make frequent withdrawals potentially resulting in penalties that leave them worse off than if they had only just deposited the money into a savings account,” said Chris Bandoli.
.House Bill 1915, sponsored by Rep. Skyler Rude (R-Walla Walla), would have made financial education a prerequisite for high school graduation.
Specifically, the bill would have required students to earn one-half credit of financial education before getting their diplomas. HB 1915 passed the House and then the Senate, but not before a Senate amendment eliminated the graduation requirement aspect of the bill. The House did not accept the change and the bill ultimately died.
This week we sat down with Washington State Treasure Mike Pellicciotti (D) who supported both the financial education bill and the retirement savings law.
Regarding SB 6069:
“It’s addressing the fact that over 40% of those in the private sector right now have no retirement savings. Two out of three millennials today have no retirement savings. It’s even worse for Gen Z and for those employers who don’t currently offer any retirement savings. We’re trying to find a way to make it easy for them to provide retirement savings for their workers,” said Pellicciotti.
We also covered the changing political dynamics of the debate over cannabis banking restrictions.