Retirement savings are the second-largest source of household wealth for Americans, with over $10 trillion in assets across the defined contribution (DC) system. Yet we know that this system is inequitable and is not creating security and wealth for everyone. Access to retirement savings is foundational, but 45 million workers lack a workplace retirement savings option

Addressing systemic inequities is so incredibly hard. You’re essentially fighting the status quo, and the status quo will reassert itself at every turn. Whenever you’re pushing for change to such ingrained problems, you can of course expect a certain amount of overt resistance, but the more challenging part can be the passive resistance. When people have the status quo on their side, doing nothing is actually a very effective method of killing the change. So how do you combat that?

This piece is going to be more like a meal than a snack. So, we’re serializing it. These are the things you need to know from five rooms we’ve been in this month. OK one was a chat room, it’s true! These five hot topics are culled from conferences and calls thoughtfully curated and hosted by the Aspen Institute Financial Security Program, DCIIA’s Innovation Forum Team, Georgetown Center for Retirement Initiatives’ State Retirement Savings Program Network, NAST’s Legislative Conference Team, and even the Conference of the Western Region Chartered Financial Analyst Societies. So we’re going to spill it. The question is, what are you going to do with it?