Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend and 2020 presidential candidate, speaks with members of the media following the Democratic presidential candidate debate in Houston, Texas, U.S., on Thursday, Sept. 12, 2019. At the third Democratic presidential debate in Houston on Thursday, Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren shared a stage for the first time, giving voters and pundits their first chance to directly compare the two candidates. Photographer: Callaghan O'Hare/Bloomberg Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg. (Photo: Callaghan O'Hare/Bloomberg)

Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, released Monday a new proposal for a public 401(k) option as a companion to his health care proposals.

Buttigieg "is proposing to create a government-run 401(k) plan that would be attached to Social Security," said Brian Graff, president and CEO of the American Retirement Association in Washington.

"Similar to his health insurance proposal, employers with existing defined benefit plans would be able to keep those plans," Graff explained. "Employers with existing defined contribution plans would be able to keep their plans as long as they met minimum requirements including a 3% contribution requirement on behalf of employees."

Buttigieg "is subscribing to the view of many of his other Democratic presidential candidate colleagues that the government always does it better," Graff opined.

On his website, Buttigieg states that "as Baby Boomers continue to approach retirement, more and more Americans are confronting the challenges of aging. After full careers, many Americans continue working longer because they can't afford to retire. For the first time in our nation's history, there will be more older adults than children. In 2020, half of adults who reach 65 will require long-term care. By 2026, we will require 7.8 million new care jobs. At the same time, more and more Americans are becoming eligible for Social Security — even as the Trump Administration has attempted to undermine Americans' retirement by cutting billions of dollars from Social Security over the next decade."

He declared on this website it's "time for a new approach."

As for long-term care insurance, Buttigieg has proposed the Long-Term Care America services and supports program.

Those eligible will receive a benefit of $90 per day for long-term care for as long as they need it. Of people currently 65 or older, 11.3 million people will receive benefits from the program at some point in their life.

The cost of long-term care varies across the country, but according to Genworth, a private room in a nursing home costs $280 a day on average, while adult day care services average $53 a day.

Buttigieg has also vowed to "strengthen the private long-term care insurance market for those with shorter-term long-term care needs by standardizing plans and establishing a long-term care insurance marketplace."

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Melanie Waddell

Melanie is senior editor and Washington bureau chief of ThinkAdvisor. Her ThinkAdvisor coverage zeros in on how politics, policy, legislation and regulations affect the investment advisory space. Melanie’s coverage has been cited in various lawmakers’ reports, letters and bills, and in the Labor Department’s fiduciary rule in 2024. In 2019, Melanie received an Honorable Mention, Range of Work by a Single Author award from @Folio. Melanie joined Investment Advisor magazine as New York bureau chief in 2000. She has been a columnist since 2002. She started her career in Washington in 1994, covering financial issues at American Banker. Since 1997, Melanie has been covering investment-related issues, holding senior editorial positions at American Banker publications in both Washington and New York. Briefly, she was content chief for Internet Capital Group’s EFinancialWorld in New York and wrote freelance articles for Institutional Investor. Melanie holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Towson University. She interned at The Baltimore Sun and its suburban edition.