By: Sarah Holmes Berk

Published: December, 2019

Access to an employer-sponsored retirement savings plan dramatically reduces retirement insecurity, but half of American workers lack access to such a plan. While the vast majority of highly educated, high-wage workers have access to defined-contribution (DC) plans, they are available to only two-thirds of construction and maintenance workers, half of service workers, and one third of workers in the bottom wage decile.

Creating a federal IRA with automatic enrollment (auto IRA) to help workers without access to a 401(k) or similar plan to save for retirement, coupled with the public dissemination of enhanced longevity data, could better meet late-life needs for these older workers, which vary substantially and are hard to predict.

Download the full policy proposal.

This proposal was developed as part of the project, Enhancing Social Security and Improving Retirement SecuritySummaries of the four winning proposals are available here.

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Keywords: Social Security

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