How to Design an Equitable Retirement Plan

Racial and gender wealth gaps are egregious in the United States—white men own almost twice as much in assets as white women, and about twenty times as much as Black women. The racial wealth gap is three times larger than the racial income gap, and yet conversations about equity in the workplace tend to focus exclusively on pay. Most employers have yet to take up the mantle of using the tools at their disposal to directly advance equitable wealth building for their employees.

Employer-supported retirement savings is one of the primary vehicles for Americans without generational wealth to build it, making it a clear site for intervention to reduce wealth gaps. Roughly a third of U.S. household wealth is held in the form of retirement assets. Because of the huge role that retirement savings play in household wealth, the design of a workplace retirement plan can just as easily exacerbate wealth gaps as it can offset them.  

At the same time, the over $35 trillion dollars invested in U.S. retirement accounts are overwhelmingly invested in traditional financial vehicles that are fundamentally extractive and continue to reproduce massive inequality and environmental harm. This represents a huge opportunity for the progressive community to leverage our dollars towards racial, social, and economic justice, rather than allowing profit-driven financial service providers to continue to operate business as usual. 

Join Just Futures for a webinar that shares practical guidance for how to ensure your organization’s plan supports an equitable distribution of retirement benefits and unpacks what is possible for organizations who want to collectively harness our retirement investments for social justice. 

Thank you to our co-sponsors!