To amend the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 to provide for greater spousal protection under defined contribution plans, and for other purposes.
Summary
What This Bill Does
The bill creates congressional findings documenting the retirement savings gap between men and women, including lower retirement preparedness, higher poverty rates for older women, wage gap impacts, and lack of spousal, requires amendment to ERISA and Internal Revenue Code requiring spousal consent for distributions from defined contribution plans, with exceptions for minimum required distributions, small amounts under 25%, joint, and requires new ERISA Section 205A establishing detailed spousal consent procedures for individual account plans: written consent witnessed by plan representative or notary, 90-day consent period, exceptions for no-spouse. It relies on compliance mandates, grants, appropriations, and reporting requirements. The main policy areas are Social Welfare and Finance.
Who Benefits and How
Spouses of retirement plan participants could face reduced risk, Low-income women and domestic violence survivors could face reduced risk, and Working-age and retired women could face reduced risk.
Who Bears the Burden and How
Defined contribution plan administrators would take on compliance duties, Retirement financial product providers would take on compliance duties, and Retirement plan administrators would take on compliance duties.
Key Provisions
- Creates congressional findings documenting the retirement savings gap between men and women, including lower retirement preparedness, higher poverty rates for older women, wage gap impacts, and lack of spousal...
- Requires amendment to ERISA and Internal Revenue Code requiring spousal consent for distributions from defined contribution plans, with exceptions for minimum required distributions, small amounts under 25%, joint...
- Requires new ERISA Section 205A establishing detailed spousal consent procedures for individual account plans: written consent witnessed by plan representative or notary, 90-day consent period, exceptions for no-spouse...
- Creates effective dates: new spousal consent requirements apply to distributions in plan years beginning 1 year after enactment, with remedial amendment period of up to 3 years (5 years for governmental plans)...
- Requires requirement that retirement financial product or service providers include an accessible link to CFPB consumer education website in any retirement product offer, with format determined by Financial Literacy...
Evidence Chain:
This summary is generated from the full bill text using AI analysis. Expand "Detailed Analysis" below for identified beneficiaries/burden bearers with clause-level evidence links.
At a Glance
What This Bill Does
The bill creates congressional findings documenting the retirement savings gap between men and women, including lower retirement preparedness, higher poverty rates for older women, wage gap impacts, and lack of spousal, requires amendment to ERISA and Internal Revenue Code requiring spousal consent for distributions from defined contribution plans, with exceptions for minimum required distributions, small amounts under 25%, joint, and requires new ERISA Section 205A establishing detailed spousal consent procedures for individual account plans: written consent witnessed by plan representative or notary, 90-day consent period, exceptions for no-spouse.
Key Policy Areas
Social Welfare, Finance
Primary Purpose
The bill creates congressional findings documenting the retirement savings gap between men and women, including lower retirement preparedness, higher poverty rates for older women, wage gap impacts, and lack of spousal, requires amendment to ERISA and Internal Revenue Code requiring spousal consent for distributions from defined contribution plans, with exceptions for minimum required distributions, small amounts under 25%, joint, and requires new ERISA Section 205A establishing detailed spousal consent procedures for individual account plans: written consent witnessed by plan representative or notary, 90-day consent period, exceptions for no-spouse.
Policy Domains
Section 3 - Spousal consent requirements
Identified Gains
- Spouses of retirement plan participants
- Low-income women and domestic violence survivors
- Working-age and retired women
- Community-based organizations with expertise in women s financial needs
- Community-based organizations serving women
Identified Costs
- Defined contribution plan administrators
- Retirement financial product providers
- Retirement plan administrators
- IRA custodians
- Retirement plan participants
Sponsors
Legislative Progress
IntroducedMs. Baldwin (for herself, Mrs. Murray, Ms. Cantwell, Mr. Blumenthal, …
Stakeholder Effects
cui bono?How this legislation distributes effects. Mention counts reflect frequency, not effect magnitude.
Consumers of retirement financial products, Low-income women and domestic violence survivors, Spouses of retirement plan participants
Defined contribution plan administrators, IRA custodians, Retirement financial product providers
Community-based organizations serving women, Community-based organizations with expertise in women s financial needs
Bill Structure & Actor Mappings
Who is "The Secretary" in each section?
- "secretary_of_labor"
- → Secretary of Labor
- "secretary_of_treasury"
- → Secretary of the Treasury
- "cfpb"
- → Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection
- "flec"
- → Financial Literacy and Education Commission
- "women_bureau"
- → Director of the Women's Bureau
- "secretary_of_labor"
- → Secretary of Labor
Key Definitions
Terms defined in this bill
Any person who purchases or acquires any goods, products, services, or credit related to the retirement or later life economic security of the consumer.
Any person who engages in the business of providing any retirement financial product or service to any consumer.
We use a combination of our own taxonomy and classification in addition to large language models to assess meaning and potential beneficiaries. High confidence means strong textual evidence. Always verify with the original bill text.
Learn more about our methodology