Statement | Fiduciary rule

News from EPI Trump administration is siding with financial advisers over workers saving for retirement

By opening a Request for Information on the fiduciary rule, the Department of Labor is siding with financial advisers over workers saving for retirement.

The Labor Department does not need more information about the conflict-of-interest or fiduciary rule; they need to fully implement and enforce it—which will benefit millions of workers in every state.

When financial advisers are paid through fees and commissions that directly depend on which investment products their clients choose, the advice they provide is “conflicted”—what is best for the adviser may not be best for the client. This creates incentives for advisers to steer their clients into investments that provide larger payments to the adviser but are not necessarily the best choice for the investor. Every year, retirement savers lose $17 billion acting on advice from financial advisers who have conflicts of interest. Until the fiduciary rule is fully implemented and enforced, retirement savers will lose to financial advisers.

The Trump administration is showing their stripes by siding with financial advisers over workers saving for retirement.

The first comment period on delaying the rule closes July 21, 2017. The second comment period on revising the rule closes August 7, 2017.


See related work on Fiduciary rule

See more work by Heidi Shierholz