Trump and the GOP agenda: implications for retirement policy.

This commentary provides background on the current state of American retirement, highlights recent efforts to reform retirement policy, and predicts what to expect under President Donald Trump. Retirement has not been a major focus of national policy makers in recent years. Early actions during the Trump administration to undo Obama administration policies may make it more difficult for individuals to save for retirement. While it is impossible to predict the future with any certainty, long-standing trends and recent political developments suggest that major action will not be taken during the Trump presidency to boost retirement security.

Reforming retirement: values and self-interest drive support for policy reform in opposite directions.

Americans' attitudes about retirement policy reform are being pulled in two directions. Because of their worries about retirement security, individuals are likely to support greater government intervention. However, because of their belief in the value of self-reliance, individuals are likely to be concerned about government interventions in the economy. This paper explores the tension between self-interest and self-reliant values and examines how these factors affect attitudes about retirement policy, testing, with a unique private survey, the degree to which concern about retirement security leads self-interested Americans increasingly to support retirement policy reforms and those with self-reliant values to decrease support. The paper also attempts to tease out the conditions under which self-interest and self-reliant values exert greater or less influence on views about retirement policy. In doing so, the paper helps clarify the level of public support for retirement policy reform and indicates the types of policies likely to garner higher levels of support.