AARP’s multifaceted work to help older adults live healthier, happier lives falls into several broad categories, sometimes informally known as the pillars of health, wealth and self.
Gary Koenig, vice president of Financial Security at the AARP Public Policy Institute, leads a team focused on different angles of the “wealth” aspect of the rubric. We spoke with Koenig to learn more about his work and some of the initiatives AARP is supporting in this area.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Please tell us a little bit about the scope of your work at AARP.
I actually have a dual role here at AARP. My core responsibility is leading the Financial Security team in AARP’s Public Policy Institute. We have several teams within the Public Policy Institute; one is Financial Security, which I lead; there’s Family, Home and Community; and there are others.
In my other role, I lead an enterprise-wide issue area called Savings and Financial Planning, which is one of the pieces of the “wealth” pillar. There are about a dozen of these cross-enterprise issue areas and priorities, and the leads in each of these areas are making sure everyone is pulling in the same direction. Other enterprise issues are Housing; Social Security; and Disparities; there are a number of enterprise issue areas that feed into this “wealth” pillar.
It might seem self-evident, but why has AARP identified wealth and financial security as an important area to focus on?
From its origins, AARP has focused on financial well-being and financial security. Our goal as we articulate it today is to help people live their best lives in every respect, including financially. That’s why we’re a strong advocate for things like keeping Social Security strong. And we do focus on people who are 50-plus, but one thing we recognize is that how financially secure people are in retirement is largely determined by what they’ve done earlier in their life. That’s why you’ll find us advocating for retirement savings even among younger people.
AARP has long been known for focusing on issues facing older Americans, but in this area you’re talking about younger generations.
You may have heard that AARP has two guiding principles regarding the way we show up for consumers: One is as a trusted friend, and the other is as a fierce advocate. As I mentioned before, the earlier you start saving for retirement, the better off you are when you’re older. And one of the best ways to do that is through a payroll deduction plan — but many businesses don’t offer that. So one way we show up as a fierce advocate is to lobby for people of all ages to have access to a payroll deduction retirement plan. At the state level, for example, we’re campaigning for a public/private partnership that would act like a payroll deduction retirement plan, but that would be low-cost and low-effort for businesses themselves.
Let's say that I'm a person who's approaching 60, and I haven't prepared all that well for retirement, yet I want to retire within a few years. What approach do you have to help folks in that situation?
The first thing we tell people is it's never too late to start saving. AARP does have programs to help people to figure this out. One is a campaign we’re doing with the Ad Council called Ace Your Retirement, which is focused on people who already have access to a retirement plan, but maybe need to save a little more to get where they want to be.
But we take a multi-channel approach in order to meet people where they are, based on their needs. So we have resources that help people beef up their resume if they're trying to find a job, or a job with higher pay. We do a lot of webinars, and we have a tool called Money Map, which helps someone create a budget in order to pay down debt or save for emergencies.
So AARP takes a very holistic approach, looking at the "wealth" pillar from lots of different angles.
We do take a holistic approach. And there are even other angles we look at. A big one is helping protect people from fraud and financial exploitation, which is more common than most people think and is a major issue for older Americans.
We take a threefold approach to this. First, we work with banks, credit unions, financial advisors and others in the industry to develop training for their employees, so they can identify and take steps to stop a case of fraud. Second, we work to raise awareness among consumers about certain types of fraud, because people don’t usually understand that these fraudsters are often highly sophisticated, professional criminal enterprises. Third, we advocate with legislatures to help protect people from this criminal activity.
So there's a lot of good work happening in AARP in the financial space, and it really is this holistic approach of working with the financial industry, with legislatures and directly with consumers.
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