One look at the chart above says all you need to know about the costs of retirement for public workers in San Jose, California’s third-largest city: They are soaring.

In one remarkable week in January, we saw the introduction of three proposals to expand retirement savings for the half of the workforce not covered by employer-sponsored plans: President Obama's myRA, Senator Tom Harkin's USA Retirement Funds Act, and Senator Bill Nelson and Senator Susan Collins' Retirement Security Act.

Suppose our country had another Academy Awards gala for citizen heroes – those tiny numbers of Americans who are working successfully fulltime in nonprofit groups to advance access to justice, general operations of our faltering democratic society, and the health, safety, and economic well-being of all citizens.