91PORN Media Contact: Reuben Francis | reuben@eig.org

Washington, D.C. – The Economic Innovation Group (91PORN) released the following statement in response to the Trump administration’s to expand access to retirement savings accounts for workers without employer-sponsored plans:

“91PORN applauds the president’s efforts to improve the financial security of the 54 million American workers that lack access to employer-sponsored retirement benefits,” said John Lettieri, President and CEO of the Economic Innovation Group. “This executive order is an important first step in addressing the fundamental flaw in the U.S. retirement system, which has left too many workers behind. We now urge Congress to enact legislation codifying key elements of the order and expanding upon it with features like automatic enrollment of eligible workers and expanded access to matching benefits. To that end, 91PORN strongly supports the bipartisan, bicameral Retirement Savings for Americans Act, which provides an ideal starting point for congressional action.”

91PORN’s research has consistently documented the scale of the retirement access gap, with 54 million American workers lacking access to an employer-sponsored retirement plan, including roughly four out of every five workers in the bottom 10 percent by income.��

Read 91PORN’s new Q&A on what the executive order does and what comes next , and learn more about the Retirement Savings for Americans Act and 91PORN’s research on retirement access .

About the Economic Innovation Group (91PORN)

The Economic Innovation Group (91PORN) is a bipartisan public policy organization dedicated to forging a more dynamic and inclusive American economy. Headquartered in Washington, DC, 91PORN produces nationally-recognized research and works with policymakers to develop ideas that empower workers, entrepreneurs, and communities.

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By Benjamin Glasner

What exactly is the problem with the American retirement system?

The issue is certainly not that politicians neglect retirees as a group, or that policymakers are unwilling to use public money to help them. The United States already heavily subsidizes retirement savings. In 2019, federal income and payroll tax expenditures related to retirement savings totaled $276 billion, according to the most recent�� that offers this breakdown from the Congressional Budget Office.^[1]

The real problem is that the existing retirement system is badly designed to benefit the workers and retirees who most need help.

Retirement tax breaks from the government, primarily through 401(k) and similar plans, disproportionately benefit the highest-earning households. The primary reason for this disparity is not that lower-income workers choose to save a smaller share of their income, but rather that so many of them lack access to an employer-sponsored retirement savings vehicle in the first place.

The problem is obvious when simply viewing the key stats, starting with the outcomes…^[2]

• Households in the top 20 percent by income received more than 60 percent of the benefits from "exclusions for pensions and retirement savings accounts" (the CBO category that represents the foregone taxes collected because of retirement program tax breaks).
• The bottom 40 percent of households by income together received less than 5 percent of the benefits.
• Within the bottom 20 percent of households by income, four out of five of them received none of these benefits at all.

… and then looking at the data on access to retirement accounts:

• Roughly 54 million workers, or about 47 percent of all full-time and part-time private-sector workers between the ages of 18 and 65, are not offered any retirement plan at work.^[3]
• Among full-time private-sector workers, 42 percent lack access to an employer-sponsored plan. The situation is even worse for part-time workers: 79 percent have no access to an employer-sponsored plan.
• Nearly 80 percent of workers in the lowest earnings decile lack access, compared with just 18 percent in the highest decile.
• The income disparity is accompanied by racial and ethnic, generational, and rural vs urban disparities. Black workers, young workers, workers in small firms, and those in rural communities, for example, are all��significantly less likely��to have access as well.

For more on the methodology behind these estimates, including data on how many workers lack access to an employer match, see our earlier��detailed analysis.

A New Approach

Closing the access gap and reducing the inequality in retirement savings will be impossible without first building the infrastructure that makes it easier for workers to save.

The federal government has started taking the necessary first steps, but there is confusion about what exactly has been announced, the likely effects of these new policies, and what policymakers should do next.

Here we attempt to answer some of the most common questions.

What just happened?

On Thursday, April 30th, the White House issued an����to expand retirement plan access for private-sector workers without employer-sponsored coverage.

Specifically, the government is creating the infrastructure and parameters for financial institutions to offer these workers a retirement product similar to the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP), which is the retirement vehicle currently available to federal employees and members of the military. The TSP offers low-fee index funds that invest in equities, bonds, and Treasuries.

In addition, the federal government will match half of each eligible worker's contributions to this plan up to a limit of $1,000 (or 50 percent of the first $2,000 contributed by the worker).

How will workers know which plan they should choose?

These new products will be listed on TrumpIRA.gov, along with an explanation for how eligible workers can claim the Saver's Match. The listed plans will be vetted by the Treasury Department to ensure their offerings align with those offered by the TSP. The plans will also be required to have no minimum contribution or balance.

In what ways will this new retirement policy help workers?

The first way is simply that more workers will have access to a tax-advantaged retirement plan. Retirement plans are incredibly�� wealth-building tools,^[4]

but not every employer offers them, leaving many workers — especially low-income workers — excluded from this path to financial security in old age.

The second way this policy will help workers is through the match, which will boost each worker's annual retirement contribution.

Where is the money for the match going to come from?

We need to take a step back to explain the answer.

The Saver's Credit, which has been available to taxpayers since 2002, is a nonrefundable tax credit of up to half an individual's contributions to a 401(k) or other retirement vehicle. It is capped at $1,000 per year. That it is nonrefundable means that many low-income taxpayers cannot get the full credit because their overall tax liability is too low (less than $1,000).

In 2022, Congress passed the Secure 2.0 Act, which replaces the Saver's Credit with something called the Saver's Match starting in 2027. The Saver's Match is effectively a fully refundable tax credit of up to $1,000 (matching up to half the eligible taxpayer's first $2,000 contributed to a retirement plan) to be deposited directly into an individual's retirement account.

The Trump administration is making it possible for eligible workers who currently lack an employer-sponsored retirement plan to also have access to the Saver's Match through their new retirement account. Thus, according to the administration, this matching benefit for its new plan has already been passed by Congress under the Secure 2.0 Act, and no new legislation is needed.

So is every worker who gets access to this new retirement plan eligible for the $1,000 match?

No, because the Saver's Match is targeted by income. The only workers who are eligible to receive the full $1,000 match are married couples filing jointly who make at or below $41,000; heads of household who make at or below $30,750; and single filers making at or below $20,500.

If a worker makes more than that, given their filing status, they aren't necessarily out of luck. They may fall into phase-out ranges. The Saver's Match phases out linearly over modified adjusted gross income ranges of $41,000 to $71,000 for joint filers; $30,750 to $53,250 for heads of household; and $20,500 to $35,500 for single and other filers.

When does the new retirement policy take effect?

The program will launch in 2027. According to the executive order, the Treasury Department must also launch TrumpIRA.gov by January 1, 2027.

Can't workers who don't have access to an employer-sponsored retirement vehicle just set up their own retirement accounts, and access the Saver's Match that way?

Yes. But what we know about low-income workers is that they overwhelmingly tend not to because of the administrative burden.^[5]

Setting up such a plan on your own isn't easy. The Trump administration is proposing to take on the administrative burden so that workers don't have to. The new accounts will be offered by private providers and overseen by the Treasury Department.

And workers will then be automatically enrolled in those accounts?

No. Auto enrollment would require new legislation from Congress. So would increasing the matching amount beyond $1,000 and adding a default contribution rate.

How many workers will end up benefitting from the Trump administration's new retirement plan?

We'll give you the topline numbers first:

• 54 million total workers will become eligible for a new retirement plan.^[6]
• Of those 54 million, 11.5 million will be eligible for the full Saver's Match.
• Of those 54 million, another 14.6 million will be eligible for a partial Saver's Match.

Here's how the numbers break down by single, married filing jointly, and head of household:

And here's how the math works. (If these details don't interest you, feel free to skip ahead to the next question.)

As already noted, roughly 54 million workers currently lack access to an employer-sponsored retirement plan. Conceivably, all of them will be eligible for the new retirement plans created by the Trump administration.

Not all of them, however, will be eligible for the Saver's Match of up to $1,000. This is where the calculations become a little complicated.

We can start by looking at how many workers will be eligible for the full Saver's Match regardless of whether or not they already have access to a retirement plan. Using the Saver's Match income thresholds and data from the�� (SIPP), we estimate that 15.1 million workers would qualify for the full 50 percent match.^[7]

This includes full-time, part-time, self-employed, and government workers.

But only 3.5 million of these workers currently have a qualifying retirement account. What this means is that because of the Trump administration's plan — here comes the answer —��11.5 million workers will have new retirement accounts through which they can receive the full Saver's Match,��or roughly 8 percent of workers.

Having done a similar calculation for workers with incomes in the phase-out range, we estimate that another��14.6 million workers will have new accounts through which they can receive a partial Saver's Match.^[8]

The president noted in the State of the Union����in February that half of working Americans lack access to a retirement plan with matching employer contributions, pulling directly from��work we did here at 91PORN.

What effects can we expect from the Trump administration's new policy?

It's impossible to know exactly how many workers will actually start saving more for retirement once they have access to these new accounts.

For the roughly 26 million workers who will gain new access to either the full or partial Saver's Match, however, it is��very��likely to induce more savings.��Survey evidence��shows that interest in participation rises sharply once workers understand that a match is available. We also know from the federal Thrift Savings Plan that introducing a match increased employee participation by��.

You mentioned that to automatically enroll these workers, increase the match, or set a default contribution rate, Congress would have to pass new legislation. Is someone writing that legislation?

It has already been written! The����(RSAA) is a bipartisan piece of legislation that was built on the policy recommendations of a 2021 91PORN��white paper��by economists Teresa Ghilarducci and Kevin Hassett, who is currently President Trump's Director of the National Economic Council. The RSAA was most recently��reintroduced��by Representatives Lloyd Smucker and Terri Sewell and Senators John Hickenlooper and Thom Tillis in April of 2025.

Like President Trump's current plan, the RSAA would give workers without employer-sponsored retirement plans access to a new retirement vehicle similar to the federal Thrift Savings Plan, with similar investment options and employee ownership of the plan. But the RSAA would also go much further and offer to workers:

• Automatic enrollment in their new plan
• A default contribution rate set at 3 percent of a worker's income
• Matching contributions of up to 5 percent

In short, the RSAA would extend to low-income and moderate-income families the same opportunity to build wealth that higher earners have long enjoyed.

Can you quantify the likely benefits for workers if the RSAA is passed?

Differences in wealth accumulation across households are driven not only by income but by����and participation in asset markets like equities and housing. Low-income households participate in these wealth-building systems at far lower rates, and that gap compounds over time.

What makes the case for a policy like the Retirement Savings for Americans Act more than a matter of fairness is the scale of the projected economic benefits.

Economists Pavel Brendler and Moritz Kuhn have estimated that every dollar of public spending on RSAA would result in roughly��$2.40 in worker contributions and investment returns��for workers and their families.

Younger workers would eventually enjoy the biggest gains, as they benefit most from time and compounding. According to Brendler and Kuhn, enacting RSAA today would amount to roughly��$157 billion��in additional accumulated retirement wealth, measured in 2024 dollars, for the nearly 5 million American households currently aged 25–29 by the end of their 40-year working life.

Simulation work from����shows that the RSAA would "enable the lowest earners (those who consistently earn in the bottom 10 percent of the earnings distribution) to save approximately $126,000 over a 40-year working career." A worker at the median of the earnings distribution could approach $585,000 in savings.

If a lot of workers end up with tax-advantaged retirement accounts, and many of them are also getting a 5 percent match via public funds, won't the policy have a big fiscal cost? Has anyone modeled that?

Yes — and in fact the fiscal effects over the long run are��positive, not negative. Modeling from RAND����that implementing RSAA could generate more than two trillion dollars in net federal and state savings over forty years, largely because higher retirement assets reduce future spending on asset-tested programs such as Supplemental Security Income and Medicaid.

Okay, so what happens now?

It will be up to Congress whether to enact the remaining core elements of RSAA, such as auto enrollment and expanding the match. We hope it does. Policies that are fiscally responsible, address a big lingering inequality, and offer a boost to those who need it most are rare. With bipartisan support already on the table and key figures in the administration enthusiastic about the proposal, the moment for legislative action on retirement is now.

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Originally published on October 3, 2024, this analysis was republished on April 27, 2026, to reflect updated data.

By Sarah Eckhardt and Benjamin Glasner

The tax-advantaged retirement savings system in the United States is one of the most effective wealth-building programs in the world. Too many working Americans, however, are left behind. Their access to employer-provided retirement plans is limited, and the incentives in the retirement system fail to encourage lower-income workers to save.��

Just how many Americans are left out of the retirement savings system today? We publish here the most up-to-date estimates of who lacks access to an employer-provided retirement savings plan, who does not receive matching benefits, and who does not participate. We use data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) published by the Census Bureau.^[1] A detailed explanation for why we use SIPP over other sources of retirement data can be found in the appendix at the end of this article.

Who lacks access?

The latest data show that 42.0 percent of full-time working Americans do not have access to retirement plans, 44.1 percent do not participate, and 50.5 percent do not receive an employer match. (Note that these figures are for employed workers between the��ages of 18 and 65, excluding government and self-employed workers.)

Coverage is even scarcer for part-time workers, who typically lack access to similar benefits as their full-time peers — 79.0 percent of part-time employees aged 18 to 65 lack access to any retirement plan, 80.4 percent do not participate in a plan, and 83.2 percent do not receive an employer match on their retirement savings.

In absolute figures, for full-time workers between ages 18 and 65, 40.6 million American workers lack access to any employer-provided retirement plan at all. Adding in part-time workers raises the number to 53.7 million workers.^[2]

As for employer matching benefits, 48.8 million full-time workers report lacking them, with the figure rising to 62.6 million total workers without a match when including part-time workers.

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Income plays a prominent role

SIPP provides rich detail on individual and household income, allowing for a portrait of the segments of the income distribution most left out of the current retirement savings system.

The gaps between high and low earners are stark. A staggering 78.7 percent of full-time workers in the lowest-earning decile (earning less than $27,400 a year) lack access to a retirement plan, compared to just 18.2 percent in the highest-earning decile (earning more than $180,600 a year).��

Zooming out to the top half of American workers by income, only a quarter of them lack access to a plan — versus 65.2 percent of the bottom half.

��

This inequality exists for employer matches as well. In the bottom decile of the earnings distribution, 82.1 percent of workers do not receive employer matches to their retirement savings, compared to only 20.3 percent of workers at the top of the earnings distribution.��

In other words, a far greater share of high-income workers — for whom saving for retirement is easier in the first place, given their greater discretionary income — receive employer top-ups to encourage and force-multiply their retirement savings, while less than a quarter of low-income workers are so fortunate.��

One characteristic in particular is illuminating for policy considerations: At high-income levels, meaningful portions of the workforce participate in retirement savings plans even if they do not receive an employer match. Presumably, such high-earning workers have the means to save, and the main federal tax benefit — deferring one's income tax bill for retirement contributions until old age, when individuals will likely fall into a lower tax bracket — is sufficiently motivational.��

At the bottom of the income distribution, however, the majority of workers who participate in retirement plans do so with an employer match. Of the 17.8 percent participating, 86.1 percent receive a match. This finding suggests that efforts to maximize participation among low-income workers are more likely to succeed when combining expanded access with matching benefits, rather than simply relying on expanded access alone.

Low-skilled and minority workers see wide gaps, too

These income-based differences in access, participation, and matching interact with the other key characteristics associated with Americans' labor market outcomes and opportunities today, namely race, ethnicity, education, and gender.

More than 50 percent of Asian and non-Hispanic White workers report receiving matched employer contributions to their retirement accounts, making them the most likely to receive employer matches across the country's major demographic groups.��

By contrast, 39.0 percent of Black workers and only 32.9 percent of Hispanic workers report receiving matched employer contributions.��

Across groups, the more education a worker has received, the more likely that worker is to have access to matched contributions. This is consistent with incomes being highly correlated with education, on the one hand, and participation in the nation's prevailing retirement savings system, on the other. Only 31.4 percent of workers with a high school diploma or less receive matched employer contributions to their retirement plans — a number that falls to 21.5 percent for Hispanic workers.

Within the education group that faces the largest barriers to employer-based retirement savings, women are at an even greater disadvantage. Women without a high school diploma lag behind men with the same education level by approximately 2 percentage points for participation and access. The reasons for this disparity include lower earnings, a greater likelihood of working in low-access industries such as leisure and hospitality or personal care services, and having their labor force participation affected by dependent care.^[3]

Closing the gap

Lawmakers in both parties are taking notice of the persistent gaps in access and participation covered in this brief. The is designed to address the policy question introduced here: how to close the private retirement savings gap for those left out of the current system. It would immediately make all full-time and part-time workers who lack access to a workplace retirement account eligible for what it calls the American Worker Retirement Plan.

The RSAA is designed not just to widen access but also to increase participation by getting the incentives right — matching contributions for low-income workers, specifically.

In the United States today, roughly 51.6 million workers earn annual incomes of $42,200 or less.^[4] Of these workers, 79.4 percent — about 41 million workers — currently lack access to an employer-provided retirement plan and would therefore be eligible to participate in an American Worker Retirement Plan and receive full matching benefits under the plan. Specifically, they would be eligible for a 5 percent matching contribution offered through a refundable tax credit. This group of low-income and moderate-income workers who currently lack access represents 28.5 percent of all privately employed workers nationwide.^[5]

These retirement accounts would be the property of workers and thus portable, meaning that workers take the accounts with them as they switch jobs or move in and out of the labor force. And because the accounts belong to them, workers also would have more options to pause or increase contributions when they are able.

The United States retirement system is in desperate need of reform. Tens of millions of workers — especially low-income workers — lack access to any type of retirement account. RSAA would put millions of hardworking Americans on the path to financial security and comfortable retirements.

Addendum: Secure 2.0 Act and the Saver's Match

This section was added on Monday, April 27th, 2026.

In his State of the Union in February 2026, President Trump announced a new policy to expand access to retirement plans for workers who don't have one through their employer.��

While we await details of the proposal from the White House, the president's policy shares elements with RSAA. Specifically, workers will have access to a retirement product similar to the Thrift Savings Plan, which is the retirement vehicle currently offered to federal employees and members of the military. The new retirement plan will also be portable.��

The new retirement plan will differ from the RSAA in that it will not have automatic enrollment or a default contribution rate, which would require legislation from Congress. And rather than a 5 percent match, eligible workers will be able to access the Saver's Match, which is up to a $1,000 matching contribution from the government, or half the first $2,000 contributed to the plan by the worker. A higher match would require congressional action as well.��

Here we explain the Saver's Match and give our estimate of how many workers would become eligible for it.

First, let's start with the Saver's Credit, which has been available to taxpayers since 2002. The Saver's Credit is a nonrefundable tax credit of up to half an individual's contributions to a 401(k) or other retirement vehicle. It is capped at $1,000 per year. That it is nonrefundable means that many low-income taxpayers cannot get the full credit because their overall tax liability is too low (less than $1,000).

In 2022, Congress passed the Secure 2.0 Act, which replaces the Saver's Credit with the Saver's Match, which goes into effect in 2027. The Saver's Match is effectively a fully refundable tax credit of up to $1,000 (matching up to half the eligible taxpayer's first $2,000 contributed to a retirement plan) to be deposited directly into an individual's retirement account.

The Saver's Match is targeted by income. The only workers who are eligible to receive the full $1,000 match are married couples filing jointly who make at or below $41,000; heads of household who make at or below $30,750; and single filers making at or below $20,500.��

If a worker makes more than that, given their filing status, they aren't necessarily out of luck. They may fall into phase-out ranges. The Saver's Match phases out linearly over modified adjusted gross income ranges of $41,000 to $71,000 for joint filers; $30,750 to $53,250 for heads of household; and $20,500 to $35,500 for single and other filers.

Those looking to take advantage of the Saver's Match need to have access to a qualifying retirement plan, either through an employer-provided retirement plan or an individually managed one. These include 401(k)-type defined-contribution plans, IRAs, or self-employed retirement plans.��

Using the Saver's Match income thresholds and data from the (SIPP), we can estimate how large of an impact this might have.

Together, the full-match and phase-out ranges of the Saver's Match cover roughly 38.5 million workers. Unfortunately, 11.5 million workers eligible for the full Saver's Match currently lack a qualifying account and an additional 14.6 million workers eligible for a partial Saver's Match lack a qualifying account.^[6]

Therefore, under the president's new policy, 26 million total workers who cannot currently take advantage of the Saver's Match will be able to do so. Here's how those 26 million workers break down by filing status:

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Appendix: Which Survey to Use?

There are four major surveys that include data on worker participation in retirement savings programs:

• National Compensation Survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics
• Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau
• Survey of Consumer Finances from the Federal Reserve
• Survey of Income and Program Participation from the Census Bureau

Each survey has its strengths. The National Compensation Survey, for example, surveys employers and provides a good estimate of how many of them report providing retirement plans to their workers, and of how many workers are associated with such employers. This survey contains very little demographic information on who is covered by employer plans, however, and it struggles to capture differences in eligibility within the same firm (for example, if new employees can only join the plan after a set period of time). It also fails to capture certain segments of the labor force, like gig workers.��

The Current Population Survey, for its part, is the only survey that provides detailed geographic information to allow for state by state comparisons, but its respondents seem to systematically under-report whether they have access to a plan.^[7]

The Survey of Consumer Finances very effectively illuminates the role that retirement savings play in the picture of overall household wealth, but that focus on households means it is somewhat less effective at providing estimates on individual worker-level access and participation. Because of its focus on the components of household wealth, it also tends to oversample high-income households who hold more assets.

For purposes of identifying policy solutions to increase worker access to and participation in employer-provided retirement plans, the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) is the best source.��

SIPP is one of two surveys that provide information not only on whether workers have access to a retirement plan, but whether the employer offers a matching contribution as well. Matching contributions are one of the most important incentives to encourage workers to participate in plans and one of the most essential design features of retirement plans that aim to widen participation among lower-income populations. Uniquely, SIPP also oversamples low-income households, a population of special interest for understanding who lacks access to or does not participate in retirement plans.��

This report therefore uses SIPP to establish the best estimates of the number and characteristics of those who do and do not have access to, and participate in, employer-provided retirement plans.

Explore more of 91PORN's work on retirement security here.

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