Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Our conversation with Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	Good morning, everybody. This is Brian Williams from 401k and beyond. We're excited about today's show. We're going live with Chantel Sheaks and she's joining us from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. She is vice president of retirement policy and before we came live, we were just talking about what an exciting last three years it's been as we go through the timeline from association retirement plans to the first secure act.

	And then we went into obviously the coronavirus followed by the CARES Act. And now we're potentially knocking on the door of Secure Act two and throw perhaps in the mix. So good morning. How are you?

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	Busy.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	Busy. I know, I know. One thing you won't be doing today, which is going to opening day for the Nationals as they as you got a rainy, drizzly across the country. It's an issue for opening day. So getting a lot of postponements already.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	Well, fingers crossed. Hopefully the storms will be out to what happened.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	Yeah. Yeah. And I've seen a lot of your content and you're very big on the big picture stuff right down through the chambers, right down to helping small businesses, which is exciting. What prompted this particular discussion was based on some briefs that you filed to talk about the excessive retirement plan fees, lawsuits which have really exploded over the last two or three years, some with merit, some without.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	I want to talk before we get into that, which could probably get a little bit technical, you know, small business retirement plans. You're talking about the local locksmith or baker, you know, over the last few years, they've been focused on so many other issues. Why is now the right time for some of these organizations to look at retirement benefits for their employees?

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	Well, I think well, personally, just because I do this for a living, I think the right time is always now. But if you think about it, even bigger picture is one of the things we're working on at the Chamber overall with most of our members is the worker shortage. And so what can you do as a small employer?

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	We now know it's difficult sometimes for small employers to really compete with other employers. But people are wanting that differential. They want that factor. And so it's not just good for your employees. It's also going to be good for you as an something to attract employees right now.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	Right. And to keep them to there's a lot of employee turnover, even the number of nose shows is amazing. I talk to small businesses that say, yeah, we hired somebody last Thursday to start on Monday, and they and they never even showed up. So certainly adding a more robust benefit package can hopefully help with that.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	Oh, exactly. And it's also there to help to plan for the future. Which one of the things I think employers can do to help their employees, no matter what your size is, it's very difficult. I know I can't even think about what I'm going to do tomorrow. So the role of the employer is really to help that employee to think not just right now, but five, ten, 15 years down the road.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	And using our retirement plan as a tool is one of the things that you can do.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	Right. And one of the things that's been most exciting to me in my career is the shift from far on K and workplace retirement accounts from being a product to now really it is more of a service, right? It's more of a workplace financial wellness. And I know the industry in the U.S. Chamber has made a lot of, you know, expresses how important that is to small businesses to.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	Oh, definitely.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	The going back to association retirement plans. And then we had secure act which had some significant tax credits. So and it was a really exciting time. And then we walked right into the brick wall of the coronavirus as local chambers and small businesses were of course focused on other things like keeping their employees and staying open. Do you feel like now you're starting to see some momentum with that pick back up again?

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	I think people are in the process of starting to think about it. But again, you know, we need other people to help. It's not something, whether it's a small business, whether it's some association you can't just say, Look, I have a retirement plan right now. So I always like to say that the retirement plan, it's a community because it takes the community to build up a retirement plan, which is the good thing about this community is that we don't make it seem that way.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	So for our employees, it seems like it's just magic and it just kind of appears there. And money goes from their paycheck over. It grows over our lifetime. There you have it. But I think that it's going to take, you know, a lot more for the community to start outreach that we're seeing. That is that, again, like with anything, you have to take care of your immediate needs before you can take care of your future needs.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	And once we start taking care of more of those immediate needs, I think that we could start going forward.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	Right. I agree with that. I mean, the retirement plan, that's never a front of the burner issue for small businesses. It's always, you know, health care is usually a priority or anything we've had to deal with over the last couple of years is going to be right now, you've got we've got state plans requiring it. You've got state mandates coming out.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	So maybe that'll start to push it to maybe more. What immediate issue?

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	One thing I think that has made it more of an immediate issue, and that was a the past two years is emergency savings and the need for emergency savings and the interplay. And there are a lot of different it's interesting is what we are supporting is there's a lot of different legislation that's going on in Washington about emergency savings, a lot of different.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	Should it be a sidecar? Should it be in plan? Should it be whatever it might be? Our view is we wanted too many options as possible because some options may be easier for a large employer. Some might be easier for small employer, for example, where you could just have an unplanned distribution. Some people may not think optimal because of leakage.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	However, if you are a smaller employer, you may not have that bandwidth also to be able to set up the emergency savings or the sidecar. But you know what you can do best. And so another thing that I think why now it's kind of the right time for employers who may not have a retirement plan or that I haven't looked at their retirement plan is because what we saw during the pandemic is Americans need to save.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	And it's not just for retirement, but it's for that emergency savings. And the way we look at it is if you look at the here and now of what you need for your emergency savings, that gets people who may not have been saving before in the habit of saving. And so once you hit that emergency savings, it's not really going to if you're already in that habit.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	So that money can just then go easily over to your retirement plan. So it's getting people in that habit. And this is you know, we saw what happened so let's not have that happen again.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	Right. And you've had 41 K plans, have loans and hardships and those type of provisions over time. But I think something that's, you know, maybe having the first $7,000 or $2,000 being readily available, you know, without penalty, without tax, can't consequences. I think that might be a good option for for a lot of folks.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	Oh, definitely. And again, we don't think there's a one size fits all because there's not. But we do know the need for I was working with some friends of mine that are like the baseline emergency savings. It's just savings. People need that buffer whatever it is before. But this will get people started in the habit.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	Right. And the 41 K is just it's just so easy to save through the workplace. I mean, you know, those numbers about, you know, people are far more likely to save through their paycheck before it even comes to them. Right. The idea of having a come to their checking account and then having a draft or even writing a check somewhere else just doesn't happen.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	If I don't see it, I don't miss it.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So with these lawsuits that we've that we've seen over the last few years, so so the U.S. Chamber here and I'll share the screen, click here to the Bloomberg article. So they're calling it a unique court strategy. Would you consider this a unique course strategy?

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	I think for us it is a little bit unique. Typically speaking, we file and the appellate court and the Supreme Court, we have a very robust practice there. We don't often file as much in the district court because you're not sure, you know, what the outcome is, is that if you file in the district court and follow on the appellate court, for those of you having done litigation, just I will face default.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	I am a recovering attorney covering litigator. I think I'm on step number four right now. But, you know, this keeps pulling back into the litigation and my attorney life. But some of these cases can go on forever. I did have one case that I was involved in that went on for 12 years and then it was remanded back down to the district court so that it went on.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	I think the longest was a case I ever knew about was 17 years. So yeah, they say Take some time. You could have your child born and go to college by the time the case is resolved. But what we're trying to do and you normally don't see I think I should step back a little bit when I first started practicing, I'm not going to say when it's a very long time ago, if you would see what an individual claims, it's probably over the past four or five years that you just saw these class action claims that are coming up.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	And so what's happening, what we started seeing with all these class actions coming because usually why we wouldn't file in the lower courts because that would be one case and then it would it would be done. But now what we're seeing is I think being a has started that age myself. Again, Bloomberg has done a great job of collecting all of these cases.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	You know, we're seeing over 200 cases filed and I believe it is back in 20, 15. When I first saw this, when I saw a plan that only had $10 million in assets because this started with the jumbo plan. Sure the massive plans, the massive employers and now we're seeing I think one that really surprised us, not where we did file was the Red Cross is but no one is safe.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	It doesn't matter if you're small does it matter if you're large. And so that's when we started thinking, well, what can we do about this? Because for many people and I know many of your clients and many of our members, if I say the word arrest, everybody gets scared right? They think it's the most complex, the most frightening thing in the world.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	I'm going it can be. I've read most of it. But what the plaintiff's side is doing is they're using the perceived complexity to try to get some. And what we were afraid of is, again, I did try to look at everything from the bigger picture is that this isn't just one case. This is having an industry impact and it's having a big impact.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	And especially it's going to have on some of our smaller employers, because what we're seeing now is with the insurance industry, you have to insure your plan and you just have to. But what happens if you can't get insurance? And because of all these cases and these cases settling, the insurance premiums have gotten a lot higher and the deductibles have gotten a lot higher.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	So often people will think that this is like a victimless crime because while just insurance company is paying for it, ultimately somebody does pay for it. And if you're a smaller employer and you see the premiums going up, or even if you're a large employer and the premiums are going up, the deductibles are going up, money is fungible and come from somewhere.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	And that means it might be, well, maybe the match won't be as robust, maybe we won't pay the administrative fees. So on that bigger picture, that's really what we were looking at. And also get into a little bit, of course, if you want. But that's part of the big part of the reason why we decided to do this.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	Right? And that's the unintended consequence of where these might have started with good intention. We're trying to lower plan fees. We're trying to make these organizations more accountable for their fiduciary roles. At the same time, it might end up having the opposite effect where because of the cost of a wristband or fiduciary liability insurance, those costs end up being pushed back to the employees, which is completely the opposite of what we're trying to do.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	Well, and also, one of the things that was bothersome to this is, as you know, it's a voluntary system right now. And, you know, we always joke in the wrestling world, no good deed goes unpunished. But if you look at a lot of these cases, the plan sponsors just left like this, like I don't know what to do because one of my favorite very disturbing cases and they claim that $35 per year for the administrative fees was excessive.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	Now, no, no basis for that. No reason for that. No benchmark in just saying $35 is too much. Well, then the answer came back and the plan said, well, actually, no, we only charge 30 And what's even more bothersome from that is, you know, plans are required to give that disclosure four times a year to participate so the plaintiffs should have had they have that information yes.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	Right.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	They're claiming that it was overcharging, but it's really not. And they put all of this in front of the court to make it look very confusing. And then what is the plan folks are supposed to do? And another thing that it's very difficult, we're seeing a lot of plan. Sponsors will have won cases. They will say, oh, you've Richard fiduciary duty because you invested in a city, a collective investment trust.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	And then the very next case is, oh, you breached a fiduciary duty because you didn't invest in a collective investment trust. You breached your fiduciary duty because you had an index fund. You breached a fiduciary duty because you had a managed. And if there's any type of investment, any type of people have been sued over. So, yeah, absolutely.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	What we're trying to get to the court is it's unfortunate what happens. The United States very big country and some of these judges, one judge might see one, one judge, Max, and they don't realize everything that's going on around the United States. And so our what we're trying to do is educate the courts of what's really happening outside of the courtroom.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	And so in the nationwide problem and the bigger picture problem with this.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	Yeah, and one of the things that's interesting about these cases, as you sometimes I read these and I say, oh, my goodness, how can a company of that size have made such a big mistake? I mean, the, you know, certain share class issues and all of that. And but now we've gone past the point where, like you said, they can be a little bit ridiculous with some of the things that they bring up.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	But what can this work in the small businesses? You know, somebody who's watching this who has, you know, ten employees, is there anything they can do to you know, it's not likely they're going to have one of these vigorous cases, but is there anything they should be doing or should be looking at to to help make give their plan a better outlook?

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	Well, definitely. As we always just I don't disregard I can make sure you have an investment policy strategy and also, one of the things that we tried to say is RSA is about process. And that is one of the things that we're finding in these cases is even like you said, sometimes I'll read these like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe they did this arrest is not based on hindsight because if it were based on hindsight, and you have the best investment, well, you probably wouldn't need to be a nurse or you could be doing something else if you could pick the best investment all the time.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	So what we say is make sure you have that process down. Make sure you document what you're doing. And if you don't have the ability to do it, which many small employers don't. That's why I go back to what I said at the very beginning. It takes an entire community to build a retirement plan is that I don't expect you if you're building widgets to know what the best investment strategy is, but you can go out and find someone who will do that for you.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	In making sure that you document what you did, you document what your choices were, and you document what either what you went through or what someone else went through. And I do think another thing that we're seeing is that, you know, some of the association retirement plans and we also see with the Peps. So if you feel that you can't do it, I think now is one of the best times, especially for small employers, that there are so many more options available than, say, ten or 15 years ago.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	Right. I agree. And we talk peps, we're talking about pooled employer plans. And our our industry is so caught up. And in jargon, sometimes we forget that people might not know what that is. I know. Yeah, that's pep simple steps, right? That's so many options out there. And yeah, the ability of employers to band together and have some sort of continue it across their plans is definitely an advantage for for certain small businesses of certain size.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	And with the with the PEPS being able to avoid audits and things like that, once they get over that 100 employee threshold can be can be helpful. What is the U.S. Chamber? How about even local chambers? What can they do to sort of lead this discussion? Sometimes local chambers might be concerned about overstepping or concerned about their fiduciary liability or responsibility.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	Is there anything they can do from an informational standpoint?

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	Well, one of the things I mean, what we do obviously we have our amicus programs going on. We also I do quite a bit, you know, do quite a bit of advocacy on behalf. But I would also suggest the Department of Labor actually has some very good information, especially for small employers, of what is your traditional responsibility how do they even choose a plan.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	The Internal Revenue Service surprisingly has all the information, and unfortunately, it doesn't get out very much so one of the things that we encourage local chambers to do, if somebody does have a question that's a great place to start, is by directing people to the Department of Labor, directing them to the IRS. Because I do know even for a small employer like you just said, I do I do a set up know, what do I do?

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	And there are there's pages specific for small employers.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	Yeah. And that that really is a good point. There is a lot of great content out there from Department of Labor, from the IRS in terms of how to manage your plan and even from the FCC on how to control fees and why fees matter. So there is a lot of good content out there. So even pushing somebody in that direction also, you know, we sometimes like to beat up on the IRS and the government for obvious reasons, but they've done a lot of things over the last two or three years to make these programs.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	When you look at some of the tax credits and as we've talked about association retirement plans, perhaps they really done a lot over the last three years to help small businesses.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	Yeah. And most recently, they did come out with some more guidance that its proposed rules. But some of it, as you may recall, the one bad Apple rule, which was an impediment for many of the multiple employer plans, that if one person kind of messed up, then every body within the plan messed up, which just wasn't a good rule.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	I mean, that's just doesn't make sense of why should one person ruin it for everyone. So I think in that way, is there really taking steps and going forward to try to make it easier for. Well, in some ways, I mean, there are other things that they're doing that we are providing comments that we want to make it easier.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	But I think that is the first place to start looking and also need.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	The industry itself has done a really good job as far as increasing technology and and lowering fees. I mean, the amount of downhill pressure on fees is has been tremendous over the last decade or so, really since the fee disclosure acts and a lot of that stuff.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	Well, and another thing, I think it is just become easier to have a plan because it's easier to move money. I was at a conference yesterday and one of the things I was just talking about is it's just data. And, you know, back in the day where you had to physically move the money from the payroll over there, you know, those days are gone.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	So now even just setting up a plan for one or two employees is much easier than it ever could be.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	Right. And from a feature standpoint, I mean, 20 years ago or even ten years ago, if you had 20 employers or left, you were probably stuck in a really expensive plan that wasn't great for your employees. But now, I mean, if you've got, you know, five or ten employees, you can you can have as good a plan as the as a Fortune 500 company.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	You can really get down to the most least expensive share classes and all those same features, auto enrollment, auto escalate, they're all available right down to small businesses. And that's what's exciting for me is there's no there's no difference between a five person plan and a 50,000 person plan really at this point.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	Yeah, but it just takes that effort to go and do that. And again, that's one of the things that we recognize and I think one of the things the local chambers can do is even just an explanation of don't get me wrong, set up a retirement plan can be difficult. It can have up, the house is down. But the importance that you get for yourself and for your employees is magnified by the effort that it takes.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	But you just have to get over that first step of thinking, oh, only the large employers can do it and getting over that first step, I think is the most important step.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	And with those with those briefs that you filed, what what's the expected outcome there? What do you think? What do you what are you looking to have accomplished by filing those?

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	Well, one of the things that we're looking at, obviously, is I don't know everything. I don't think people understand how expensive litigation is that this doesn't come cheap. And this is not cheap for us to do either. But it's something we really believe in to help our members and we're hoping that it will slow down, if not put an end to some of these cases.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	When the judges see the bigger picture of what's happening and that I did analysis of some of the cases, and most these cases are settling, which is unfortunate because the more these cases settle, the more plaintiffs bring them on. Because if I can just bring a case in within a year, I settle and attorneys fees, I get $1.3 million which in one case, when I did the math on it, even being generous, it translated that settlement amount translated to $22 per participant, and the attorney's fees were over 1.3 million.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	So what we're hoping is to educate the judiciary so that these cases can be dismissed very early on instead of being like that case, that I told you about, that went on for 17 years. Yeah, that is what we don't want, but we want. And we also want judges to be able, we want to be able to protect petitioners because we want to encourage people to set up plans ultimately.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	Mm hmm. And part of it is that discretion that you have in setting up your plan that there is no set fee, that the plaintiffs try to make it very black and white to say it only costs $30 and only costs $25 for administrative fees. But that's not true because administrators it depends on what you buy, that if I buy just pure administrative services, it may only be 25, it may only be 30.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	But what if I want to buy education? What if I want to buy investment services? What if I want to buy compliance services? And we don't want to discourage employer buyers from buying services and including services that would be very good for their participants and instead just go into that barebones service that we do know. And I'm sure, Brian, I'm sure you've seen this in your practice.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	It's really confusing to invest as an individual that you see even if you just see ten what which tints I pick, how should I do it? All right. So we really want to encourage employers to include services such as investment services that would help our participants make better use of their plans. Mm hmm.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	And one of the the easy, easiest solutions, maybe, is to have employers pay those fees outside of the plan. It makes it a lot cleaner from a fiduciary standpoint. If the employer is writing a check not pushing those back to participants. Right.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	Well, but we've also seen the irony of that even in some of these lawsuits where the employer was paying the fees and they were still sued, claiming that the fee was too high, even though the employer was paying part of it.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	Yeah. Well.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	So the employers had about 50% of it. So the employer was really only paying, say, like $14. But again, something to think about is money fungible?

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	So if the employer pays for something here, it may not pay for something there. And. Right. So that's when you have to try to look at the bigger picture. And I think sometimes those of us into retirement, we only look at the retirement, but we also have to look at wages, health care, everything and where do we want our dollars to go?

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	Right. And I've heard employers say, well, if I pay all the foreign fees, my employees are never going to notice that it's it's not something they'll see. I'd be better off just giving them a a 1% raise or something along those lines. There's better things for me to do it with my money that it will get me as the employer more recognition and then paying the foreign fees because nobody will notice or appreciate it.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	Well, we know that they're not even looking at it right now because the fee disclosures that we currently have they're not obviously not looking at them when these lawsuits are coming down and they're putting the wrong number on the fee, even though the participant has I mean, I know when I log on to mine, first thing I do when I pull up my statement, it's right there.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	I know exactly how much I pay in fees.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	Right? Yeah. And one of the things I'd like to say personally, if I could sort of wave a magic wand as the employer fee disclosures are intentionally lengthy, I think, to some extent. And there's no uniformity, it would be nice to have a one pager that every plan needs to have. That's maybe even on the employer and the employee side that just says, okay, all in what are your costs in percentages and dollars and sort of make them uniform across the board.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	That's one of the things I'd like to say.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	Well, then we need to work together on this because I know that's one of the things that we're advocating for right now is because, you know, the chamber, we're not big on mandating more employer disclosure because disclosure costs money. At the end of the day, it's there's no plan administration. She doesn't come in and take care of everything we wish there were.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	But if we're going to have disclosure, we want meaningful disclosure And I think what the one thing that I've seen time and time again with all of these lawsuits is that this is not meaningful disclosure because nobody is reading them. Nobody's understanding them. So what can we do and how can we work together like you said, nobody's going to read ten, 20, 30 pages.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	Then I'm going to read one page. How can we break this down to one paragraph?

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	Right, right. Yeah. Five big fun. I know. I know. At least 14 point. Come on, we can do it. Especially, especially now, if we can get to you know. So what are your thoughts on electronic delivery on some of these verses versus paper? How does that factor into the ability to read these or the ability to kind of get.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	Where we are? We are definitely a very big proponent of a participant should be allowed to get their disclosures, how it works best for them we do believe that the default should be electronic because we are trying to keep costs down. So it's ironic on one side, you have all these people screaming because, oh, look at the cost of the plans and then trying to mandate that we do paper disclosures.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	I have large employers who dedicate about $3 million just for their disclosures, for their retirement plan. I said million. That is money that could be go in other places. If we go back to research, it can go to the employees. It could go wherever you have it. So one of the things that we do like about electronic disclosure is the ability to layer nobody knows what how these terms mean.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	But we all know that if we're looking on something online and it's underlined it in blue and we click on it, we're going to get a definition correct. Or we can take and I could take that paragraph that gives you the very basics that you need, but embed in it if you want to dig deeper. And so I think we have the technology, but sometimes in in a real world, we're still back in 1974 when it comes to reunification.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	On a percent. Yeah. And I think a lot of times when people see things in percentages, it's tough for them to translate in dollars. And sometimes we look at things in dollars and they may look very high from a percentage standpoint, especially if it's a smaller plan or a newer plan. So having both of them on there and you know, even if we're sending fee disclosures to employers, make sure that they get it.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	Maybe there's something they have to log on and, and acknowledge that that they've seen it at least once a year that yes, I've read through this. I mean, it might be like the terms of service that we all scroll through, but.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	That we don't read.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	Yeah. I mean, round and round would go, but it might be something that that we could at least have them log in and check the box and say, yeah, I look at this, I understand that. And, you know, at least they've got a record of it. And that certainly wouldn't be that difficult to do from a technology standpoint.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	Well, and also I'm also a big proponent of examples is because sometimes these terms are very confusing. But if I have an example that I can see I was like, Okay, that kind of makes more sense to me now that I have an example of what that percentage means. But I'll also be honest with you on percentage. There are a number of people who back in the day remember when we had to do percentage is of and all of that.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	A lot of people don't understand percentages. Yeah, but people do understand examples So one of the things that we're supporting in, you know, security, you point out the new legislation that just we just have the retirement security of how is forget that and what it stands for. Sorry. There was a provision in there mandated that the Department of Labor, the department take a look at all of the current disclosures and do an in-depth study bringing the community in on it because like I said, a lot of things go back to 1974.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	So we really back that is let's just take a look at everything because there's a lot of stuff in there that just doesn't. Maybe it was okay in 1974 but it's not okay today right.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	I, I agree with that 100%. So we're in the middle of secure act 2.0. So we just passed the house where we're going to the, to the Senate at some point I've heard some predictions maybe the summer, maybe it'll be sort of a last minute end of the year thing like secure. Where, where do you think it's going from here.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	If I could predict that I wouldn't have to work for a living. But we were seeing progress. I'd seen a lot more progress on. I thought we had a great hearing in the Senate Health Committee last week. A lot of great ideas, a lot of talk about emergency savings, also talked about disclosures. So right now we like we call it Christmas Tree Time.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	So for those of you who don't work on Capitol Hill, as you'll often get a bill and it has X amount in it. So we have the bill in the House that passed the House. Now the Senate needs to decide what they want to do. We call it sometimes called a Christmas tree, because then people like to hang their own little provisions all over it.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	So it's like putting ornaments all over that that bill that you had. So that's really the question that's going to come up is, you know, we have talked about we talked about earlier, will there be emergency savings provisions added on to it? We will some things be stripped off? Will they take some of the ornaments off? We are hoping the mandate to provide paper statements will be taken off of there.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	And so I think up from now over the summer, we're going to see a lot of people talking on the Senate side about what provisions because we did have last year. Portman pardon. They also had their own bill on the Senate side that had a lot of things in common with the current House, though. So we probably will see those.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	But then the question is what else is going to be on there? And that can easily take over the summer to try to work that out.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	Yeah. How about how about you personally or from a chamber perspective, what's your magic wand issue? If you could wave a magic wand, what would you put in retirement policy tomorrow?

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	Ours is more of keeping things out. Um, that we have two pronged approach to work to. What we're looking at is we have the right now because what you see from secure to point out there are a lot of small fixes and they're good. But it's and I've even talked to some of the senators is it's not going.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	It's not this magic wand that's going to fix retirement and security for for everyone. It's a good start but it's not like this. We've now fixed that we never have to go back to it. So, one, we want to make sure anything that comes out is encouraging. Even the tiny fixes makes sure that it encourages all sides employers, large, small, medium.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	We are really interested in small proprietors, the self-employed, because we think that that has been a big group that's kind of been left behind. So we want to just make sure everything encourages. We don't want provisions in there that discourage and some of the provisions that have been talked about, they kind of sound good and in a feel good sort of way, but they don't have any data back in them.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	And all they're doing is adding administrative purposes right. So that is our what we're doing right now. But a bigger picture is what we want to do is step back and look at our entire retirement system. And instead of just looking at it private sector, public sector, looking at it all together of how do employer plans work with Social Security with private savings?

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	Because we looked at all that about 100 years ago. We haven't really revisited it yet. And so over the next few years, our project will be instead of like taking a look at everything through the lens of just the tax code, let's think about what retirement security for Americans should be, what we want it to be. Then how do we get there for both the employer, the employee and the government.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	Right And you bring up a really interesting point about self-employed or part time or even the the phrase gig economy and that type of thing. One of the things I hear sometimes from small businesses or well, I don't need a retirement plan because some of my team, they don't they don't make a lot of money or it's not something they'd be interested in.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	But what the employer doesn't understand sometimes is this person might be working two or three different jobs or they might be making widgets at home and selling them on Etsy or something like that. And they don't this might be the job that could be their retirement savings. So small business might roll out a program. And that person that's only maybe just making $5,000 a year there, maybe they take that whole thing and put it into their retirement plan or maybe they have a spouse that makes a lot of money and they're working for savings.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	So I think that's a misconception that we need to work with small businesses to make them understand that there's other ways that their employees might be earning income out.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	Definitely, and working with small employers because there have been some studies out there. Pew did a very good some good studies with there's kind of a the employees and employers are talking over each other. And one of the things that we really want to encourage is, especially for the smaller employers, is sit down. It's a lot easier if you have five or ten employees versus if you have, you know, 10,000, but sit down with your employees and actually just ask them what would they like?

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	Mm hmm.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	Right. Right. And a lot of times they don't even know what's available. So the employer might say, well, I've asked them and they don't really want a retirement plan. Well, nobody really wants a retirement plan. Nobody wants their paycheck to suddenly be 3% less next week. So again, educating your employees on why it's important and certainly automatic enrollment, automatic increase, all of those things can help along the way.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	Definitely. But what we want is to make sure that employers have that flexibility and are not mandated to do certain things because one of the things that we do worry about is we are huge proponents of automatic enrollment. Absolutely. Inertia does wonders, but it doesn't work for all employers. And we want to make sure that there's not this one size fits all approach from Congress or through the administration.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	Because if you've seen one plan, you've seen one plan that every employer is going to have different needs, large employers have different needs from other large employers, large employers have different needs from small employers. So let's just give the tools for employers to be able to do what's right for their own employees. Mm hmm.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	Yeah, I agree. And I'd love to see something that helps employers out with new employees. A lot of times there's that six month waiting period or one year waiting period because they want to make sure the employee sticks. But at the same time, they're missing out on a year of savings potentially. So I'd like to see something kind of help fill that gap that doesn't burden the employers but still make something available to those employees.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	And that's of the things that we're working on. But I think a lot of that also comes with educating the employer of so what, they may leave, but or they may say, if you think about it, they may stay because look, I have this emergency savings account my employer just set up for me. I have this retirement plan that my employer set up.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	But if I go over there, I'm not going to have that. So don't look at it in terms of I don't want to do this because they're going to leave. Look at it in terms of I'm going to do this to help them stay.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	Right. And maybe they left because they thought the employer didn't care about them. They weren't making these benefits. Available. So. So so big picture, U.S. Chamber folks who might not be familiar with the U.S. Chamber, what is it that the U.S. Chamber does it look like you change your colors or logo? Is that pretty good?

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	Florida. Florida, that I think that. So we decided we have been around for over 100 years. And we decided we we just gave our building a new facelift and that it it is four just absolutely gorgeous. So anybody who comes to Washington D.C. please walk past 1615 its street that's right across from the White House they can't miss it what we are we are the nation's largest lobby an organization on behalf of businesses and businesses of all sizes.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	And I think that's one thing but sometimes people forget that. Oh it's just for the big businesses. No we have members from sole practitioners to 10,000 employees. And you know all of our members are equally as important no matter what the sizes is that we're here to advocate on behalf of businesses because we believe in innovation and believe in businesses.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	And so if you don't have employers, you don't have employees and you don't have employees, you don't have a employers kind of works that way. So we want to see policies that work to encourage employers and help employer. Same point.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	Okay. And I know you've put out a lot of great content. I was looking at your YouTube channel. You recently did a program on ESG, which has been a hot topic, of course, not just investing, but in the retirement plan space. Do you guys have a particular view on ESG and being involved in retirement plans?

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	Our view is, and this is where I think there's a lot of confusion on this is it actually goes back to 1994 on a very small issue that people kind of blew it out of proportion. But if you look at our most recent comment letters that I drafted on this topic is we believe in letting plant iShares be planted.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	iShares you are appointed as a fiduciary, you have a job it's not for the government to tell you what you should and shouldn't invest in. That's not how everything works. RSA you must employ a prudent process and so if through your process you determine x investment is prudent and I personally don't care what that is, that's not my job.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	My job is not here. I am not in the rest of this area and I don't play one on TV. But what we want to do is making it easier, not put up hurdle another issue that did come up for us quite a bit is there are people who are pro-U.S., anti-U.S., and I am completely neutral on it.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	I am what is best for what works the best for the plan. And for example, if you have participants who want a particular investment option. So you have your standard menu over here. And then if you have a number of participants who want an environmental option, so you go ahead and you have an option, maybe a mutual fund or ETF that is geared more toward that, you still have an obligation to prudently select it.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	You can't just randomly close your eyes and like, I want this fund. No, you as a fiduciary have to make sure it's prudent. If it's not prudent, you're not going to put it in that.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	Correct? Yeah. And I think there was a time when folks thought that if you were investing along those lines, you could potentially be sacrificing something on the return front. I don't think that's the case anymore. And we said ESG without defining it. I broke one of my own rules about throw it. But you're talking about environmental, social and governance issues and, and funds that select companies.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	That's an additional criteria in addition to all the typical criteria that that an investment might use. And you brought up an interesting point about participants could potentially be motivated to participate in a plan because they see that option on there, especially some of the next generation folks who might be disenchanted with Wall Street or something their parents let through and in oh, eight or nine.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	But if they see something on the list that's maybe more in line with their particular views, if that gets them to put away 3%, whereas they might not have before, I think it's something we need to look at.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	Oh, and definitely that's one of the things that we had worried that there may be a chilling effect for that particular aspect of it. And again, the pressure is still must prudently select that type of investment. So you're not giving as you said, you're not giving up on the, you know, having an imprudent investment in there. You still have to make sure it's there.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	And another thing to to let our members know is the E, the S and the G arbitrage number. And I always find it interesting, you know, they've found them all together, but nobody's going to invest in something that has bad governance, that just as a general endorsement and also on the defined benefit side, when you're doing that investment if you do about investment as an employer, you have to make up the money in the plan.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	So there has never been a time where any arrests that fiduciary is going to select something that they knowingly is going to be a bad investment because of it is you coming out of your bottom line, you put money, you have an obligation to put money back in the plan if you lose money.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	Yeah, I agree with that. I mean, we're coming up on 45 minutes. I know you have to put your case back on and save the retirement plan.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	Save the retirement world. Yeah one comment that the time.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	Exactly you got to get into your and your phone booth remember those things get in your phone booth and put on your superhero costume. Is there anything else we you want to touch on either from a U.S. Chamber perspective or anything you're doing in retirement.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	I think this is doing great and we really look forward to keeping up the partnership with you.

Brian Williams, Northshire Consulting, 401kandbeyond	All right. Sounds good. Thank you, Chantal. I appreciate it.

Chantel Sheaks, Executive Director, Retirement Policy U.S. Chamber of Commerce	Thank you. Have a great day. Bye bye. To.

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