A week ago I started picking up referrals from the Wall Street Journal Online article, “How to Get American Workers to Save More.” Anyway, it was great to get a referral, but it was also neat to see what the article had to say. Apparently, Americans aren’t savings enough, not even when offered free money through their employer sponsored retirement plans, like a 401(k). The author, Theo Francis, writes about a new organization, Conversation on Coverage, that is attempting to turn this around, and get Americans to start saving more.
“The Conversation on Coverage plan seeks to tackle the problems piecemeal. It would create a new kind of retirement-savings plan for small businesses — home to many uncovered workers — and two new varieties of guaranteed-benefit pension plans that would be easier for employers to maintain and cheaper to fund.
In addition, the plan envisions a centralized retirement-savings plan, coordinated by the federal government and with payroll deduction, for workers whose employers don’t sponsor one.The proposals are likely to attract at least some attention on Capitol Hill, including from Sen. Charles Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, who praised the group’s efforts in 2004 as it started crafting its plan.
However, the new retirement plans would remain largely voluntary, leaving employers mostly free to adopt or ignore them. That could pose problems for some Democratic lawmakers, who worry that any plan leaving participation up to employers is bound to fall short.”
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