Sitting in a rocking chair on the porch. Traveling around the country. Visiting family. That’s how many of America’s working people dream of spending their golden years after a lifetime of hard work. But, if the well-heeled CEOs of the Business Roundtable have their way, working people will be forced to postpone their retirement dreams.

The Business Roundtable Executive Committee CEOs and Their Golden Nest Eggs for Retirement

Methodology: CEO retirement nest egg listed amounts are the sum of the present value of accumulated pension benefits and nonqualified deferred compensation plan balances as reported in each company’s 2012 or 2013 proxy statement. The following companies whose CEOs serve on the Business Roundtable’s Executive Committee did not disclose any benefit amounts or are not publicly traded: Frontier Communications Corp., MasterCard Worldwide and State Farm.

The Business Roundtable, which represents more than 100 CEOs of the nation’s blue-chip companies, wants to increase the retirement age for Social Security and Medicare to 70.[1] Under current law, the retirement age for collecting full Social Security benefits will rise to 67 for those born after 1959 from 65, where it's currently. The current eligibility age for Medicare is 65.

Raising the retirement age for Social Security is a benefit cut, no matter what age a person retires. Raising the eligibility age will penalize working families whose life expectancy is lower than that of the wealthiest Americans. Over the past three decades, the life expectancy for men retiring at 65 has risen by six years for the wealthiest half of Americans, but only by 1.3 years for the least wealthy half.[2]

The Business Roundtable also wants to cut Social Security benefits by changing the way cost-of-living increases are calculated. Under current law, benefits increase annually to cover inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The Business Roundtable wants to change the formula to reduce cost-of-living adjustments not only for Social Security beneficiaries, but also for veterans and federal employees.

This “chained” CPI supposedly reflects how consumers change their purchasing decisions as prices increase. For example, if the price of chicken goes up, consumers might substitute beans. However, because medical expenses are a bigger part of the household budget of seniors, the cost of living for the elderly actually increases faster than is currently calculated.[3]

Perhaps, not surprisingly, the Business Roundtable CEOs are well prepared for retirement. On average, the CEOs on the Business Roundtable’s executive committee have accumulated more than $35 million in pension and deferred compensation benefits. In contrast, 57% of America’s workers have less than $25,000 in savings for their own retirement.[4]

^{[1] Social Security Reform and Medicare Modernization Proposals, Business Roundtable, January 2013.
[2] Research Ties Economic Inequality to Gap in Life Expectancy, The Washington Post, March 10, 2013.
[3] Consumer Price Index for the Elderly, Bureau of Labor Statistics, March 2, 2012.
[4]“Workers Saving Too Little to Retire,” The Wall Street Journal, March 19, 2013.}