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Your 401(k) Goes Woke: Biden Admin Proposes Rule to Funnel Cash to Woke Causes.

Companies Could Contribute to Climate Change, Diversity Issues and More.


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Key Points

  • The Biden Administration is considering funneling 401(k) cash to woke causes.
  • Many employees won’t even know unless they specifically opt out.
  • Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) says Democrats keep chasing the latest “woke agenda.”

Your retirement savings may not be as much as you’d hoped – but at least they’ll be more “fair.”

It must have been while searching for the latest woke issue trending on Twitter that progressive Democrats got the idea to use your 401(k) savings to quietly fund controversial initiatives you may disagree with: climate change, diversity, equity – it’s all on the table.

According to the Washington Examiner, “The [new 401(k)] proposal explicitly directs retirement plan administrators and asset managers to consider environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) factors when selecting investments.”

“That would require retirement plan sponsors to give as much weight to a fund’s support of liberal causes, such as donating to Black Lives Matter or building wind turbines, as they do to financial returns,” the Examiner says.

So your 401(k) is no longer about maximizing returns – it’s about maximizing equity.

Democrats love this idea. 

For one thing, it rolls back a Trump-era rule that ensures asset managers offer investment options solely in the financial interests of participants. For another, it funnels money to liberal causes and, in some cases, the funneling is done without the account holder’s knowledge.

As the Examiner put it: “Workers could unknowingly be supporting causes that don’t align with their political views.”

Yes. Exactly. That’s exactly right.

According to the Examiner, “the rule could affect the roughly 150 million workers and $10 trillion in assets covered under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974.”

Democrats say this new proposal allows workers the freedom to support social causes like racial justice and climate change. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) sees it another way.

“[Democrats] want to remake the entire country to comply with the latest woke agenda. And with this rule, the political left’s allies on Wall Street and corporate America will be free to do it with no recourse for the workers and retirees harmed by it.”

Rubio is proposing a bill that empowers shareholders to sue corporations and executives if their business strategies deviate from their duty to maximize investors’ returns. The Examiner says.

The American Retirement Association says they “enthusiastically” support the proposal. I’m not so sure the American people are quite as enthusiastic.