Budget Includes Automatic Retirement Benefits for non-401(k) Workers

I’m on a conference call with Peter Orszag who’s mentioning an element of the budget that thus far hasn’t gotten any attention—the administration’s desire to expand automatic retirement savings to workers whose employers don’t offer 401(k) plans. Long story short, it would require such employers to set up an automatic payroll deduction IRA for all their employees. Employees who looked at the situation and decided they would rather save less would be free to opt-out. But the default option would be to opt-in, and the evidence suggests strongly that flipping the default in this way will substantially increase the savings rate. A smallish thing, but a great idea.