Abstract
It has long been recognized that millions of Americans do not have access to pensions or retirement savings programs at work. Various efforts have been made to address this problem legislatively. None have been particularly successful. The Obama Administration proposed the creation of a federal automatic enrollment Individual Retirement Account (IRA), but Congress would not act. Several states took an interest in the problem but were hindered by a number of problems, most importantly by the question of Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) coverage. President Obama directed the Department of Labor to find a way around the ERISA preemption, which it did by extending the 1975 safe harbor regulations to state-operated payroll deduction IRAs. California’s Auto IRA program became effective on January 1, 2017. Others will soon follow.
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