House Dems: Stock Market Drop Has Worst Effect on Workers, Small Business

Image from Yahoo! Finance

Cross posted at The Next Right

Democrats on the House Small Business Committee understand that the people worst hit by the stock market plunge are employees and small businesses. Retirement plans are the only source of savings for many workers. When stocks go south workers take major losses to their only savings.

For small businesses and their employees, these problems are compounded. Unlike Wall Street executives, small firms do not have golden parachutes to fall back on. For many of these men and women, pensions and 401(k) plans are their only form of savings.
[emphasis added]

Unfortunately, House Democrats don’t have many good ideas on how to alleviate the problem. Suggestions include:

1. Capping what small business owners owe in retirement benefits to their employees (not much of a win for the employees and retirees counting on what was promised)

2. Allowing small firms to “look further ahead for pension values when calculating how much they must pay into employee’s retirements” (meaning promise what you can’t pay now but hope one day to pay?)

3. Encouraging “small employers to offer retirement plans by making it easier to borrow against them” (thus putting the funds at even greater risk because they are now collateral?)

Still, unlike President Obama who sees the stock market as a tracking poll, House Democrats know what millions of working class Americans know up close and personal. When working families and retirees lose 45% of their savings in one year, that’s not a tracking poll.