A RETIRED mechanic and a fourth-grade teacher from my home state, Russell and Christine Kazda, are having a tough time getting by. While Mrs. Kazda still teaches, Mr. Kazda suffered an injury last year and retired early after a 30-year career. Over the years, the Kazdas did what they were supposed to do and saved for retirement. They made it clear to their retirement advisers that they wanted to invest conservatively — then they had to dip into their savings earlier than expected.

The Kazdas are struggling not because they didn’t save enough but because, in their own words, they “naturally assumed” that the financial professionals advising them “were acting in our best interests” when urging them to transfer $172,000 of their retirement savings into investment products falsely peddled (according to a legal claim they have filed) as low-risk.

The Kazdas didn’t know their advisers were pocketing almost 10 percent in commissions by aggressively selling them inappropriate investment products. After a few years, their life savings had fallen by $125,000.

According to the White House Council of Economic Advisers, Americans lose an estimated $17 billion in retirement savings each year because of misleading advice of the type that the Kazdas received. And now, the Chamber of Commerce and others that benefit under the current system are fighting to make sure people keep losing that money.