The House Ways and Means Committee approved a bipartisan package aimed at strengthening Americans’ retirement security. The package, the Secure Act of 2021, also called Secure 2.0, was co-sponsored by Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.) and ranking member Kevin Brady (R-Texas) and includes dozens of provisions that build on a retirement law from 2019. “The retirement crisis in America is real and will only worsen unless we make saving easier and do more to encourage workers to begin planning for retirement earlier,” Neal said during his opening statement during Wednesday’s hearing. Some of the provisions in the Secure 2.0 legislation include promoting “retirement savings earlier by automatically enrolling employees in their company’s 401(k) plan”; allowing “employers to match their workers’ student loan repayments with contributions to their retirement plans”; and encouraging “small businesses to set up retirement plans for their workers, by fully offsetting the paperwork costs and providing a per-employee credit …