Giving Americans More Choices for Their Retirement Savings
14th June 2026
For years, most Americans’ retirement savings plans have been locked out of certain investment choices, including some of the market’s best-performing assets. That makes it harder to save for retirement. Fortunately, though, this is about to change, giving savers new—and better—options for their investments.
At issue are not only the many rules and regulations surrounding what can go into 401(k)s and similar savings plans, but also the flimsy legal framework governing fiduciaries—the ones who manage your money. Many investment options are excluded, either by law or by common practice, as fiduciaries try to avoid both legitimate and frivolous lawsuits.
Asset classes like private equity, digital assets, and real estate effectively became the purview of “accredited investors” with very high net wealth and government workers with public pensions. Most Americans—those private-sector workers on Main Street—were left out.
For folks with a typical 401(k) retirement plan, this meant lower returns on their investments. U.S. private equity has delivered the highest long-term returns compared to public equities and other asset classes—even after fees—averaging 3 percentage points (about 20%) better annual growth than the S&P 500.
The Poster Child here is Social Security, which BY LAW has to put its money in U.S. Treasury debt, which famously pays the worst return on the planet because it is also popularly believed to be the most secure investment you can make Supposedly Social Security payments go into a ‘trust fund’, but that fund consists of U.S. debt, which means that the money has already been spent. Social Security is depending on the ‘full faith and credit of the United States’ to get its money back, which means that the situation is no different than if the SS system depended on current tax revenues for its payments. It is, in short, a Ponzi scheme.