National Senior Investor Initiative Act of 2021

Floor Speech

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Mr. GOTTHEIMER. Madam Speaker, I am honored to rise in support of the bipartisan Senior Security Act, which will help protect vulnerable seniors from hucksters and scam artists. I would like to thank my good friend, Congressman Trey Hollingsworth, for working with me on this crucial bill, and also Senators Susan Collins and Kyrsten Sinema, who have introduced companion legislation in the Senate.

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

Unfortunately, far too many of our seniors have had their hard-earned retirement savings stolen right out from under them when a scammer calls or shows up at their door. There are millions of seniors across the country who have been the victims of financial scams and abuses. It is appalling; it is offensive; and it is unacceptable.

Older Americans lose approximately $3 billion each year to financial scams and abuse. Approximately 7 million Americans have been victims of exploitation, and that is only what is being reported. Only 1 in every 24 cases of elder abuse actually gets reported.

IRS impersonation calls and fraudulent tech support calls are among the most widely used and costly scams targeting older Americans. In fact, more than 2.5 million Americans have been targeted by scammers impersonating IRS officials, costing more than 15,800 taxpayers at least $80 million since 2013. More than 3 million Americans are victims of tech support scams or scammers pretending to be with a reputable tech company who persuade seniors to provide personal bank account information.

My mom was even a victim of one of these scammers. Someone claiming to be an IRS agent threatened her. I remember she called me and thought that I had messed up her tax return, but it was a scammer.

COVID scammers are also now targeting older Americans with promises of quicker access to vaccines or pandemic relief benefits, preying on those whose only wish is to hug their family members again.

We are here today to do something about it by voting on the Senior Security Act to help protect American seniors from scams. My bipartisan bill creates a new senior investor task force at the SEC to fight back against these hucksters scamming our seniors. The task force will also identify challenges that senior investors encounter and areas within the SEC or self-regulatory organizations where senior investors would benefit from changes.

The task force will also coordinate with other Federal regulators, State regulators, and law enforcement to ensure that we are doing as much as we can at every level of government to stop this. Our legislation will also make antifraud enforcement even more common by giving law enforcement stronger tools and information via the new senior investor task force.

The task force will submit regular reports to Congress, outlining trends that are impacting senior investors. This will be a cop on the beat to make sure we keep up with the changes in financial scams and to be ahead of new issues as they arise.

Our seniors have given us so much. We should always have their backs and help protect them from predators who want to take advantage of them during their twilight years. I urge my colleagues to support this commonsense, bipartisan bill.

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