EXCLUSIVE: Why Cannabis Industry Workers And Employees Should Think About 401(k) Plans
If you’re a cannabis industry worker or employer, you might not be thinking much about retirement plans, but that could and perhaps should change.
We sat down with Tyler Priest, chief revenue officer at Green Leaf Business Solutions, to explore the relevance of 401(k) plans for the cannabis industry.
Why? Because Green Leaf just launched GreenPath 401(k), which is a significant development for the legal cannabis industry and may help reshape the conversation around retirement planning.
What Is A 401(k) And Why Should You Care?
As many US workers lucky enough to have one may already know, a 401(k) is a retirement savings plan offered by employers that allows workers to invest a portion of their paycheck to fund their retirements, often with tax advantages and a matching contribution from their employer. For workers, it’s a tool for building long-term financial security.
Priest explained how such a retirement plan can be made available to cannabis industry workers.
“We solved a series of challenges, starting with a legal structure that allowed institutional-grade 401(k) partners to be comfortable that cannabis businesses were operating within the federal and state guidelines set forth for them,” he told Benzinga.
Such plans were for the most part unavailable to cannabis employees due to regulatory difficulties, related to the way cannabis is regulated in the US.
“Retirement planning is …