Stock pricing in the securities market responds to supply and demand.  This is intuitive with regard to individual securities.  We understand that if more people want to buy a stock (demand) than sell it (supply), then the price moves up. Conversely, the price decreases if more want to sell than buy.  I wonder to what extent regulators have examined the role of retirement saving plans in flooding the market with demand to buy new securities and which can drive up stock prices overall.  Consider this historical graph of the NYSE trading average.  Observe the sharp rise beginning in the late 1980's with the introduction of individual retirement savings plan and the beginning of the defined contribution society. 

Nyse-composite-may

chart source: Forecast Chart

New Department of Labor regulations open the door for state governments to sponsor retirement savings plans for non-government workers.  See for example, California's proposed plans.  The rules, proposed in 2015, became final on August 30, 2016.  You can read a summary of the proposed plans published by The Brookings Institute and a DOL interpretive bulletin.  Also being considered are proposed rules authorizing high-population cities to sponsor similar plans in states that don't create the non-government worker retirement savings plans.  Collectively, these regulations are intended to facilitate the retirement savings of the estimated 55 million small business workers who do not currently have the option of participating in a retirement savings plan.  This policy decision  encourages retirement saving and promotes individual financial stability.  It also means that more worker/saver/investors (a group I have called Citizen Shareholders in prior works) will be encouraged to invest in the private securities market.  The demand cycle continues and can be sustained so long as there are as many or more worker/saver/investors as there are folks  liquidating their retirement savings. In other words, a severely aging workforce/population could pose a demand/supply problem for the securities market.

-Anne Tucker