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Happy Independence Day!
by Rob Roper
In 2023 the Vermont legislature passed a law spearheaded by Vermont State Treasurer Mike Piecack (D-VT), Act 43 – An act relating to the establishment of VT Saves. What it does is mandate employers with more than five employees and not otherwise offering a retirement savings plan to register and enroll their employees in this state-run savings account scheme. 5 percent of the employees’ salaries will be automatically deducted and invested in Vermont Saves – without the employees’ initial consent.
As the Treasurer’s Office states, “The Program…. requires [emphasis added] that covered employers with five or more employees automatically [emphasis added] enroll their employees into VT Saves.” No requirement to ask or even inform the employee that this transaction is taking place. The first phase of mandatory enrollment for employers with 25 or more employees begins July 1, 2025. Today! Phase two for employers with 15-24 employees kicks in January 1, 2026, and for 5-14 employees a year from now on July 1, 2026.
Employees can opt-out of the program but have to actively do so after being forcibly enrolled. The law states:
Unless otherwise specified by the covered employee, a covered employee shall automatically initially contribute five percent of the covered employee’s salary or wages to the Program. A covered employee may elect to opt out of the Program at any time or contribute at any higher or lower rate….
In the absence of an affirmative election by the participant, five percent of the participant’s taxable wages as is required….
So, if this program sounds like it affects your place of work – meaning you (the Treasurer’s office estimates around 88,000 Vermonters will be impacted) — and you don’t want to see 5 percent of your salary automatically dumped into a state run retirement account, you need to talk to your employer, go to THIS WEBSITE and click on “Employee Opt Out” in the menu bar at the top of the screen.
It’s worth noting that government employees who would otherwise qualify are exempt from the mandate to enroll. So, do you really want to trust your retirement savings to chefs who won’t eat their own cooking? Just sayin’. But, if Vermont Saves is a good option for your financial situation, by all means do it! Saving for retirement is a wise thing to do, and if this is a helpful tool – great!
That’s not the issue. The problem here is automatically enrolling people in a program that removes a sizable chunk of their take home pay potentially by unpleasant surprise. VT Saves is going affect primarily lower income earners making $50,000 a year or less. Five percent of $50,000 is $2500 (or over $100 per two-week paycheck). Rent being what it is, egg prices being what they are, etcetera and so on ad infinitum, some folks may not be able to afford having that deducted automatically from their salary. It’s great to save for the future, but there is no future if you can’t afford today. And it is not right or fair for government to make folks jump through hoops in order to control what’s happening to their own money that they earned.
The program, if necessary at all (there’s nothing stopping someone from setting up an IRA), should have been set up as an opt-in option for employees, not an opt-out. The latter is infantilizing nanny-stateism. Pick-Pocket Piecack shouldn’t be able to snatch a working Vermonter’s money and, like a bully on the playground, dangle it high in the air while making us dance to get it back. After all, what are we celebrating this July 4th weekend?
Rob Roper is a freelance writer who has been involved with Vermont politics and policy for over 20 years. This article reprinted with permission from Behind the Lines: Rob Roper on Vermont Politics, robertroper.substack.com
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Categories: Commentary
Your money is ours
Your children are ours
Your land and how you use it ours
Your vote is ours to do with as we please
Your censorship is ours
Your cancel culture is ours
Your press is ours
You retirement is now also ours.
Your constitution is not ours and we don’t care about your God given rights, we, we are your God.
Sincerely, the 10 United nation, build back better, oligarchs running Montpelier and ruining our beloved state of Vermont.
“Vermont Saves has an annual asset-based fee of approximately 0.32%. This means you will pay approximately $0.32 for every $100 in your account. There is also a $22 annual account fee (that is charged quarterly at $5.50 each quarter) and a $4 state fee (that is charged quarterly at $1 each quarter). These fees pay for the administration of the program and the operating expenses charged by the underlying investment funds in which the program’s portfolios are invested.”
The devil is in the details and how many will be caught off guard and caught unaware of legalized seizure of wages? For minimum wage earners – a rather big hit. It is said the first four months of a given year is free labor under the current tax codes, now they just take it and make you chase down the “opt out” option? Another reason to opt out of Vermont all together – it is proving to be not worth the price of their admission fees anymore. A true penal-ized colony of serfs.
The ultimate irony? Some of us have been saying if Montpelier were listening they could easily cut 5% from a bloated 9 billion dollar budget, but they keep spending more of our money every year.
But those making the lowest wages in the state, in one of the most expensive places to live were just mandated to cut 5% out of their paycheck by state statue.
People need to read Animal Farm, see this is where some pigs are “more equal” than others.
This should be a siren song for the VTGop, but we not even get a strongly worded letter from our “fiscally conservative” governor.
We have lost our way in Vermont, it wouldn’t be hard to do much better, showing up for work would be a big first step,
Neil, everything you say is true, but the following needs to be a reminder I believe. The VT Dept of Revenue and spending, is made up of the same folks who have schemed over the years to land the retired state employees smack dab in the midlle of a $5+ Billion $ deficit in the retired fund of state employees. The morons in charge of this debacle would love to have us not bring it up, including some Legislators. I spoke with one Legislator about this showing up some where as a bill owed, that needs to be paid. His response: “Oh, that is all taken care of”. He does not understand that it IS TAKEN CARE OF WHEN IT IS PAID!!
The Gov and Paul Dame are joined at the hip like Pete and Repete.
Both of them are literally enjoying the division they have created and are working to sustain in the R party. Both of them now should be planning for R success in the next Statewide election. Don’t hold your breath, cause with these two clowns, it ain’t goin’ tuh hapun.
Just like Social Security you won’t get any interest on “contributed money for your benefit. In the mean time free money for the state to spend. A pyramid scheme. And if you die before you can “collect” the state would keep the money as in SS. In VT a person has two security status.
How about this? If it’s such a great idea, make this the retirement plan for all state employees?
No go?
How about you give all Vermont workers the same retirement plan as state workers? How about that?
Oh, suddenly we couldn’t afford that could we? Some pigs are apparently more equal than others.
See this is the problem with democracies, which are in our case a transitional government to socialism. They even say it in the name today, democratic socialist.Majority stealing and taking from a minority, it used to be called slavery. They are doing it today in South Africa, how’s that working out?
We vote to take all the farmers land. Except they don’t have people willing or smart enough to farm and they are starving. South Africa today!
When are we going to cut through all the b.s. propaganda? We don’t need more uniparty control in Vermont, surely.
With just a couple simple questions their whole narrative of “equity” comes tumbling down for all to see. Even a moron can see the lies and hypocrisy when you ask these simple questions.
How come our leaders are not asking these simple questions? How come the press are not asking these simple questions? There is your answer.
State run savings plan. My comment would not be allowed. Richard Day.
The legislative commitment to managing citizens lives is breathtaking…no I guess our submission to such intrusion is what’s breathtaking.