This was prompted after an email exchange with a friend.  Retirees also need help from the COVID-19 relief bill.  Please consider contacting your Congressperson and Senators.  Here is what I sent:

Please quickly bring this to the Senator’s attention.  The relief bill under consideration needs to have provisions added to help retirees.  Anyone, aged 70 1/2 or older, is mandated to take distributions from their 401(k) and other retirement accounts based on a formula of Required Minimum Distributions (RMD).  The distribution amount is based on the value of the account on 12/31 of the prior year.  At this point, anyone who did not take the distribution early in the year, is going to be heavily penalized.  With the market down roughly 30% year-to-date, the overall percentage of the account that they’ll need to take to meet the dollar amount is considerable higher than it was based on the year end value.  These people deserve relief too.  Most aren’t working and will be forced to lose even more if regulations are not change.

Thank you for your consideration.

Please contact me if you’d like to discuss this.