Small Business Majority Announces Clinton Global Initiative Commitment to Action to Help Ensure Retirement Security for Small Businesses

CONTACT:
Cassie Mills | Communications Manager
(202) 289-0957 | cmills@smallbusinessmajority.org

Atlanta—Small Business Majority announced a Commitment to Action today at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) America meeting in Atlanta to help ensure retirement security for small business owners and their employees and to educate entrepreneurs about their retirement saving options. This yearlong project will deliver reliable and unbiased information specific to small business owners—likely for the first time.

Small Business Majority’s commitment with CGI seeks to expand retirement security for small businesses by educating 2,000 entrepreneurs about the full spectrum of retirement policies, practices, products and services available to them. The commitment will educate entrepreneurs about their retirement plan options through a series of 50 in-person and online educational seminars and a web portal featuring retirement security curriculum, resources, federal and state policy updates and discussions, and best practices for choosing and setting up an in-house retirement program.

Despite their hard work and massive numbers, the nation’s small businesses—some 6 million small employers and 22 million self-employed entrepreneurs—remains largely unprotected when it comes to retirement security. In fact, a Government Accountability Office report from 2012 shows a mere 14 percent of small employers offer some type of retirement plan for employees. Additionally, this is not a case of employers enjoying benefits not shared by their workers. Recent research found small business owners over 50—those who would seem most likely to be concerned about retirement—are even less likely than employees to have retirement plans.

Small Business Majority will address this issue through its Commitment to Action to educate small business owners about retirement security. The commitment will be implemented through Small Business Majority’s Entrepreneurship Program, a curriculum and resource developed to deliver authoritative, objective information and resources to help entrepreneurs get the resources they need to start, grow and sustain their businesses.

“Our opinion polling found small business owners struggle to offer retirement savings programs due to a number of barriers, but they want to offer this benefit to their employees because it helps them attract and retain talent,” said Rhett Buttle, President & Managing Director of Small Business Majority. “Our commitment to action aims to educate small business owners on their retirement options and help level the playing field between small businesses that want to offer retirement benefits but can’t, and their larger counterparts that can. This will help small businesses compete for the best employees, and give employers peace of mind that they’re doing what’s best for their workers.”

To learn more about Small Business Majority’s commitment to educating small business owners about retirement security, visit http://smallbusinessportal.org/retirement. This program is supported by a grant from The Prudential Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Prudential Financial, Inc. that focuses their grant making on eliminating barriers for underserved populations in order to achieve financial security.