Launching EBRI’s New Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council

The Employee Benefit Research Institute has been focusing increasingly on research that helps policymakers, providers, employers, and others better understand the impact of employee benefits on diverse communities. Such research in the past year includes the following Issue Briefs:

• The “Examining HSAs Through a DEI Lens” Issue Brief examined the stark differences in HSA behavior that are found based on accountholder race, ethnicity, gender, and income.
• The “Impact of Five Legislative Proposals and Industry Innovations on Retirement Income Adequacy” Issue Brief found that proposals such as expanding automatic enrollment and enhancing the Saver’s Credit could have the greatest positive impact on the net outcomes of families headed by Black and Hispanic workers.
• “Understanding the Finances of Rural vs. Urban Americans“ revealed that rural Americans were more likely to own their home and a vehicle, while they were less likely to own a retirement account or stocks and mutual funds than were urban Americans.
• “Making Workplace Wellness Programs Fit the Needs of Black and Hispanic Workers: Findings From the 2021 Workplace Wellness Survey” identified that higher-income Black and Hispanic workers were less likely than White workers to give top ratings to their employers’ efforts to improve various aspects of worker well-being across physical health, emotional/mental health, and financial dimensions.
• Meanwhile, “2021 EBRI Financial Wellbeing Employer Survey: Focus on COVID-19 and Diversity Goals” found that benefit decision makers were highly likely to agree that their companies provide safe spaces for their employees to provide feedback on their needs, understand the needs of their distinct employee population, and have put substantial effort into identifying the financial wellness needs and inequities among their work force demographics.
• “Labor Force Participation and the Pandemic: Making Sense of the Changes” showed that Black Americans stood out as being particularly hard hit during 2020; Black American males and females had the largest percentage decline in the number employed from 2019 to 2020.
• “2021 Retirement Confidence Survey: A Closer Look at Black and Hispanic Americans” revealed that the wealth gap between White Americans and Black or Hispanic Americans remains even as income rises, and that Black and Hispanic Americans were more likely to consider debt to be a major or minor problem for their household than White Americans, across each income group.
• “The Status of American Families’ Accumulations in Individual Account Retirement Plans and Differences by Race/Ethnicity: An Analysis of the 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances” learned that families with minority heads were much less likely to have individual account retirement plans, and when they did own these plans, the median amount held in them was significantly less than for those with White, non-Hispanic heads.

About EBRI’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council

In order to better understand the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) research needs of EBRI’s members and the benefits community in general, EBRI is forming a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council. This will consist of DEI-focused individuals within EBRI member organizations.

The EBRI DEI Council will:

We will kick off the Council shortly and will have a DEI discussion group at our upcoming Research Committee meeting in May. If you are interested in participating in this council, please let me know at lucas@ebri.org.