FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Aug. 13, 2025
CONTACT: Jarice Thompson, jarice@ourfinancialsecurity.org
DOL Eases Path for Private Equity to Exploit Retirement Accounts
Washington, D.C. — The Department of Labor’s hasty decision to rescind its 2021 guidance that warned plan fiduciaries about the risks of private equity and other alternative assets in 401(k) retirement plans is deeply troubling. The DOL has not had time to meaningfully study the impact of opening retirement accounts to these dangerous, high-fee, and opaque investments—much less to devise appropriate safeguard to protect small savers from the serious threats they pose to retirement security.
“Scrapping this guidance just days after Trump’s executive order is reckless and premature,” said Oscar Valdés Viera, private equity and capital markets policy analyst at Americans for Financial Reform. “Allowing private equity into 401(k) plans is already a dangerous idea that puts workers’ retirement security at risk. Rushing to dismantle existing standards before any serious review only makes a bad approach even worse—giving Wall Street the green light to raid retirement accounts.”
It is no coincidence that the Trump administration is opening 401(k)s to private equity just as the industry is struggling with falling returns, fundraising difficulties, unsold assets, and institutional investors heading for the exits. Private equity sees these trillions in retirement savings as a lifeline to prop up its business. Without strong guardrails, ordinary savers will pay the price in diminished resources for retirement as they are left holding the riskiest, most expensive slices of the market, with little transparency or recourse when things go wrong.
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