Third post in three days on these plans, as I try to figure out how to actual contribute, in some small way, towards moving this forward.
But the name of the plans feels like enough, in itself, to doom it. It’s just silly and unserious. Originally a group called “Retirement USA” — a project of the AFL-CIO, the Economic Policy Institute, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, the Pension Rights Center, and the Service Employees International Union — coined the acronym “USA” to stand for Universal, Secure, and Adequate. Their original plan, or rather, “principles” as their website doesn’t provide any specifics, promoted mandatory employer and employee contributions to a system administered by a government agency or by non-profits, with annuities at retirement.
The “USA Retirement Fund” terminology leaves behind any mandate except mandatory auto-enrollment, so it needed to abandon the “Adequate” part of USA, and swapped it for “Adaptable.” And “adaptable” is a fair characterization of the intention that the benefits at retirement will be able to be decreased or increased as needed. But I still cringe at the cheesy acronym.
So how about this:
Let’s call the plans Qualified Pooled Retirement Plans. We can abbreviate that to a Q-P plan and pronounce it Kewpie (like the doll). We don’t have to give it an abbreviation that “means something” any more than the 401(k) does.
And if it’s really necessary to have a cute acronym somewhere in the picture, we’ll call the establishing act the Helping America’s Retirees Keep the Income they Need Act, and maybe that’ll make Senator Harkin happy enough to abandon the “USA” name.
As always, the problem remains in how to make this happen. . .
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