Kent Mason Featured in Empower Paper titled “2026: A 20/20 Moment for Retirement” reflecting on the legacy of the Pension Protection Act and Looking Ahead to the Future of Retirement
- Published Date: August 14, 2026
On August 14, 2026, The Currency, an Empower publication, released a study titled “2026: A 20/20 moment for retirement” where Davis & Harman Partner, Kent Mason, was featured as a subject matter expert discussing the landscape of retirement savings.
The paper reflects on the 20 years following the passage of the Pension Protection Act and looks ahead to the next 20 years of retirement savings. The paper touches on innovative solutions that have helped support workers as they save for retirement and legislation that has helped improve plan design and operation, including SECURE 1.0 and SECURE 2.0.
Kent Mason offered his perspective on automatic enrollment and reenrollment of workers who may have initially opted out of saving early in their career, allowing for periodic check ins with workers and more opportunities to begin saving. Mason is quoted to say regarding public policy discussions, “[t]here’s a lot of focus on how to utilize automatic enrollment even further in the future.”
The paper continues to discuss how pooled employer plans (PEPs) have expanded access to retirement plans for millions of workers. Mason pointed out that for smaller organizations, PEPs simplify plan sponsorship and lower barriers to offering a workplace retirement plan. For midsize organizations, they create operational efficiencies and cost savings by allowing administrative responsibilities to be shared across multiple participating employers.
When discussing the next 20 years of the retirement system, the paper discusses five opportunities where continued innovation may help strengthen participant outcomes over the next 20 years. Mason is quoted that in looking at the next 20 years, “helping people stay in the system may become just as important as getting them into it.”
The full paper is available here.
