FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 1, 2026
CONTACT: Jarice Thompson, jarice@ourfinancialsecurity.org
New AFREF White Paper Details the Risks to Workers’ Retirement Savings from Misguided DOL 401(k) Proposal that Bails Out Private Equity
Washington, D.C. — Today, Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund released a new white paper warning that the Trump administration’s proposal allowing private equity into people’ 401(k) retirement accounts will undermine their retirement security and amounts to a bailout of the private equity industry. The proposal unleashes private equity’s high-fee, opaque, and risky investment model on workers’ retirement savings. AFREF submitted the new brief, The Private Equity 401(k) Trap, as part of its formal comment opposing a Department of Labor (DOL) proposal to open 401(k)s and other defined contribution retirement plans to private equity, crypto, and other so-called alternative assets.
“The DOL should be protecting workers’ retirement savings, not handing them over to the worst Wall Street predators and crypto scammers,” said Oscar Valdés Viera, Senior Policy Analyst for Private Equity and Capital Markets at AFREF. “This proposal would use 401(k)s to bail out a struggling industry and advance the administration’s push to embed crypto deeper into the financial system. Driving workers into the arms of private equity firms and crypto insiders would let the President’s Wall Street and crypto cronies pocket billions at the expense of families’ retirement security.”
