In his State of the Union address to Congress on Tuesday, President Donald Trump announced a new economic proposal that would significantly expand financial planning and savings for American workers who currently do not have retirement plans or who work for employers with matching plans.
“My administration will provide the same type of retirement plan to every federal worker for these forgotten American workers, our great people, the people who built our country,” Trump said in Tuesday’s speech. “We will provide you with a matching contribution of up to $1,000 per year.”
Trump gave his second SOTU speech on Tuesday, days after he blasted a Supreme Court ruling that invalidated a cornerstone of his economic agenda: the tariff system. As Trump spoke, court members (although not all justices were present), as was customary, sat directly in front of Trump and listened impassively to his criticism of the court’s ruling. He also called on lawmakers to better regulate themselves and formally ban trading in material non-public information, which would be subject to enforcement by financial and criminal regulators.
Insider trading situation
The pending Stop Insider Trading Act would severely restrict individual stock trading by members of Congress, their spouses and children, create exemptions and increase penalties for late or non-compliant reporting of stock holdings and trades.
“As we make sure that all Americans can profit from a rising stock market, we also make sure that members of Congress cannot corruptly profit from inside information,” Trump said. He caused uproar in the crowd after loudly asking whether former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was in attendance, then pivoted to the question.
Pelosi has faced years of scrutiny over her husband Paul Pelosi’s extensive stock trading, but she has not been charged with any crime and has denied wrongdoing. Similar questions, and even concerns, about stock trading by members of Congress (and their family members) have extended to members of both parties and even Fed governors, with the Fed’s inspector general finding no wrongdoing in the investment decisions of several governors and Chairman Jerome Powell himself being investigated and cleared. In 2022, Powell said the central bank would tighten rules.
Trump’s call for SOTU comes after House Republicans introduced legislation that would make violations of the act punishable by fines of thousands of dollars or a percentage of the transaction value. Under the proposal, certain cases could also be brought to the Justice Department.
Reform advocates cite polls showing that roughly 70% to 90% of Americans (across party lines) support banning members of Congress from trading individual stocks, one of the few ethics measures to gain overwhelming bipartisan support in recent years. Regulators argue that every hearing in which lawmakers question executives of companies in which they have partial stakes, and every vote in which they hold shares in affected industries, deepens public cynicism about a system they believe favors insiders.
Democrats in Congress are urging regulators to investigate whether Trump’s own erratic tariffs helped well-connected insiders profit from market swings and whether administration officials tipped off investors ahead of policy shifts. A ProPublica review of trading data found that administration officials and congressional aides made well-timed stock sales ahead of market-disrupting tariff moves that ethics experts said may have been legal under current rules but still undermined public trust.
What matters most is Trump’s own clemency decision. Since returning to the White House in 2025, he has issued a series of pardons and commutations to allies convicted of financial crimes, including figures linked to fraud, tax evasion and deceptive political fundraising schemes. During his first term, he pardoned a longtime Republican congressman convicted of insider trading: Chris Collins of upstate New York.
Do Americans save enough?
As for retirement savings, Trump pointed to painful disparities among retirees; he claimed that about half of working-class Americans do not have a retirement plan or an employer matching contribution plan. Under a traditional 401(k) plan, employees deposit a portion of their earnings tax-free into a personal account. (Contributions are taxed later, usually when the individual is in a lower tax bracket.) Employers match contributions up to a certain percentage to encourage employees to save.
BlackRock billionaire CEO Larry Fink warned investors last year that most people don’t have enough saved to last them through retirement. According to Fink, the average response amount is about $2.1 million. “Hardly anyone comes close,” he said.
401(k) plans have largely replaced pension plans as the primary means of covering living expenses during retirement. Trump has been highly focused on the issue, often citing savings from 401(k) plans when mentioning the stock market’s outperformance. In his speech, he tied the expansion of retirement savings tied to the stock market to the need for more congressional regulation of stock market use.
“As we ensure that all Americans can profit from a rising stock market, we also ensure that members of Congress cannot profit corruptly through the use of inside information.”
This story originally appeared on Fortune.com
