Auto-IRA

Under this proposed policy, companies that don’t offer retirement plans have to automatically enroll their workers in an individual retirement account (IRA). Workers have the choice to opt out, raise or lower the contributions set by their employers. The employers would deduct a set amount from the monthly paychecks to be invested in the retirement accounts. This is to nudge workers who have no retirement savings (nearly half of those in the private sector) to take a step in the right direction. It banks heavily on the employees’ inertia –basically, if they don’t opt out, they will automatically be saving for their retirement.