National Senior Investor Initiative Act of 2019

Floor Speech

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Mr. GOTTHEIMER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for allowing me to speak on behalf of this bipartisan legislation. I also want to thank my good friend, Congressman Trey Hollingsworth, for being a great partner on this important legislation.

Since I took office, I have been committed to helping seniors save their hard-earned money for retirement, to helping them cut their taxes and afford their prescription drugs, and to protecting Social Security and Medicare so that, at the end of the day, they can afford to stay in New Jersey and enjoy their lives with their kids and their grandkids.

Unfortunately, there are millions of seniors across the country who have been the victims of financial scams and abuses that have cheated them out of their rightful retirement and are now putting that all at risk. Here are a few disturbing facts.

According to a report from the Senate Special Committee on Aging, older Americans lose approximately $3 billion each year to financial scams and abuse.

Scammers claim to be a child or a grandchild on the phone. Thousands pose as IRS agents, others as tech support people and representatives; and then, in the end, they are just going after personal data and bank information.

A separate survey from the Investor Protection Trust found that approximately 7 million Americans have reported being victims of exploitation. They scare and intimidate seniors, and many seniors don't even report it. Only 1 in every 24 cases of elder exploitation actually gets reported.

My mom was even a victim of one of these scammers.

It is appalling. It is offensive. It is unacceptable. Thankfully, we are here today to do something about it.

Today, the House of Representatives is considering our bipartisan legislation, the Senior Security Act, to help protect vulnerable seniors from predatory scams and financial abuse.

The bipartisan Senior Security Act will help stop financial predators from scamming seniors out of their savings by finding ways to strengthen protections and safeguards for seniors and by creating a senior investor task force at the Securities and Exchange Commission to focus on how seniors are being targeted by fraudsters and to help stop those who seek to take financial advantage of our seniors.

New Jersey's seniors have given us so much. We should always have their backs and help protect them from those who would seek to do them harm and take advantage of them.

Madam Speaker, again, I would like to thank my colleague, Mr. Hollingsworth, for his commitment to protecting seniors, and I urge my colleagues to support this commonsense, bipartisan legislation.

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