Public policy tends to hyper focus on specific areas of people’s lives - whether health, economic stability, housing, etc. - as if each aspect of our lives exists in a vacuum separate from everything else. People need a lot of different needs met all at the same time in order for them to succeed and thrive. Public policy is starting to recognize the importance of those interdependencies and how they collectively contribute to people’s well-being, and that creates new opportunities for partnership and collaboration across public and private sectors.

The National Association of State Treasurers (NAST) is the professional association for the equivalent of the chief financial officer in all 50 states, D.C., and the territories. Not only are they the state treasurers, but they also could be the directors of 529 savings plans, ABLE savings plans, state debt management, investments, and sometimes pension and retirement programs, as well as the fun one – unclaimed property.

Innovations in retirement savings options are helping us address the savings gap in this country, but gains in just the retirement space aren’t enough if we really want to improve people’s overall financial wellbeing. We need to start collaborating to help people with all of their financial needs.