Early Preview–State of the Union Week

The Obama Administration is starting to previewfor items that will be included in this week’s State of the Union address. At today’s meeting of the Task Force on Middle Class Families President Obama revealed that he is going to use the address to focus on economic security for the middle class. Many of the items he discusses on Wednesday night will be included in his forthcoming budget, and many were decided upon long ago, so take with a grain of salt some of the “pivot” analysis that you’ll be hearing in the coming days.

As we did last year, we’ll be keeping a close eye on the President’s speech and the forthcoming budget. Last year we saw the President introduce the concept of Universal, Voluntary Retirement Accounts in both speeches and in the budget. The “Auto-IRA” looks like it will be in the budget again this year–and perhaps highlighted in the SOTU.

Here’s the new AP piece, courtesy of Salon.com:

The initiatives also focus on savings, requiring employers that don’t offer work-based retirement plans to enroll their employees in a direct deposit retirement account, unless the employee opts out. The cost to employers would be offset by new tax credits, and the administration says the smallest firms would be exempt.

We will be interested to see what emphasis is placed on this proposal, and what place in the pecking order other pro-savings items receive in the speech and budget. While it’s probably too late to make any changes, might we suggest that the President and his team consider bringing children into the savings game? As we all know, the sooner you start, the better…

Update

It seems that the President will not just promote the Auto-IRA on Wednesday night, but the expanded Saver’s Credit as well. Here are the President’s remarks:

That’s why we’re proposing to give more workers better access to retirement plans at work, to match retirement savings for middle class Americans so they can save more, and to strengthen and update the 401(k) regulations so that they can save with greater confidence. (Italics added)

To see what the President’s expanded Saver’s Credit might look like, you can see the details in The Assets Report 2009.