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AARP 2019 Legislative Priorities 1. Priority 1— Hawaii Saves: Help small business and workers in the private sector save for retirement through payroll deduction. The bill will help the state facilitate the establishment of an "Auto -IRA" retirement savings program. • Two-thirds of Hawai'i's small businesses do not offer retirement savings plans to workers because it is too expensive, complicated and time-consuming. About half of all private sector workers do not have 401Ks or even simple IRAs — that's about 216,000 workers. • The lack of retirement savings is a ticking financial time bomb. Working until you die or are too sick to work is not a retirement plan. If people get sick and aren't able to work, they will need social services to help with medical costs, rent and food and that will cost the state and taxpayers. • About half of all workers do not have any retirement savings and one of the main reasons for the lack of retirement savings is that workers do not have access to savings plans at work. Payroll deduction is the easiest and most effective way to save. People are 15 times more likely to save if it comes out of their paychecks before they get a chance to spend it. • There is a way to help more people save that's working. In Oregon, 22,000 workers participating in the OregonSaves program have saved $10 million in the first 16 months. The program is free for business to offer it to workers. It's like a College 529 plan. The state helps set the program up, but a private company runs it. CalSavers and Illinois Secure Choice have just launched and at least seven other states are setting up similar programs. • If Hawai'i workers saved enough to generate an extra $1,000 in annual income in retirement, we estimate the state would save $32.7 million in social service costs over 10 years and the combined state and federal savings would be more than $160 million. • Small businesses want to help their workers. Seven out of ten support a state -facilitated retirement plan run by a private company. Eight out of ten think legislators should support a Hawai'i Saves program and about 70 percent of those who don't offer a savings plan said they would likely participate in a Hawai'i Saves program for their workers. 2. Priority 2 — Kupuna Caregivers Bill: We support providing $2 million for each year of the biennium budget to continue this landmark program to help working caregivers stay in the workforce. • The program is working and helping people, especially women, who are more likely to be caregivers, stay in the workforce. The program currently provides up to $70 to a working caregiver to help them stay in the workforce. • We also support some changes in the law to give the state and counties more flexibility so that they can spend up to $350 a week, rather than up to $70 a day to meet the needs of working caregivers. Every caregiver has different needs and this change allows the state and counties to better tailor services — such as meals, transportation and senior day care — to meet those needs. • Evidence suggests that assuming the role of caregiver for aging parents in midlife may substantially increase a women's risk of living in poverty in old age. • Family caregivers who leave the workplace to care for a parent lose, on average nationally, $304,000 in wages and benefits over their lifetime.