Lew: Government-backed MyRA accounts a 'stepping-stone' to retirement savings
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Lew: Government-backed MyRA accounts a ‘stepping-stone’ to retirement savings
In an exclusive op-ed piece to Yahoo Finance, U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew is promoting the nationwide launch of myRA, government-backed individual retirement accounts available to Americans who earn less than $131,000. Lew touts myRAs as “a new simple, safe, no-fee retirement savings option designed for people without access to a retirement savings plan at work.” Social Security, he writes, was never intended to be a sole source of retirement income, and for more and many families, the “old paradigm feels lost” as they approach retirement without a defined benefit pension or significant personal savings.
Savings is a critical step that each of us should take on our own as early as possible.
Jack Lew, Treasury Secretary
The myRA accounts have no fees, and they carry no risk of losing money because they are backed by U.S. government savings bonds, Lew writes. The accounts are designed to make it easy and attractive to start a savings habit. They are meant to be starter accounts, and thus savers can transfer these funds into a private-sector Roth IRA as their nest eggs grow, Lew writes.
