President Trump signed an executive order on Thursday that would make it easier for the tens of millions of workers without access to workplace retirement plans to find and open an individual retirement account through a federal marketplace. It is the latest attempt to address a problem that has hampered American savers for generations.
The executive order doesn’t create new retirement accounts, but would direct individuals to “low cost” I.R.A.s offered by private companies through a new website called TrumpIRA.gov, which President Trump has directed the Treasury Department to create by January. The site will allow workers to filter and compare I.R.A.s based on cost, quality and investment options.
The effort would also make it easier to access a new federal matching contribution, known as the “saver’s match,” that takes effect next year and is aimed at workers with lower and moderate incomes.
But details on how exactly it would all work, or what companies would be included, have not yet been released.
Closing the gap between those with workplace plans and those without has been a bipartisan goal of policymakers for decades. Nearly half of private sector workers, or roughly 56 million people, do not have access to workplace retirement accounts or traditional pensions, according to research from AARP Public Policy Institute. A majority of them have low and moderate incomes, or work for small businesses that don’t offer retirement plans.
“My administration intends to give these often-left-out American workers access to the same type of retirement-savings opportunities offered to every federal worker,” President Trump said in the executive order. He was referring to the Thrift Savings Plan, the federal workers’ retirement program, which has low fees and a small collection of index-like investments.
President Trump created the website using existing administrative authority, but called on Congress to pass legislation to codify and build upon the website framework, while making the federal matching contribution permanent.
“Directing Treasury to make it easier for workers without employer plans to find low-cost, private-sector I.R.A. options — and to promote the “saver’s match” — reflects the kind of practical, market-oriented thinking that has historically attracted bipartisan support,” said Emerson Sprick, director of retirement and labor policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a centrist think tank.
The effort would integrate an existing federal matching contribution, at least for workers who earn below a certain income threshold. This “saver’s match,” which was signed into law by President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2022 and takes effect next year, matches up to 50 percent of what a worker contributes, capped at $1,000 for individuals and $2,000 for couples. (To get the maximum match of $1,000, you’d need to save $2,000 — if you save less, you will get proportionally less.)
To be eligible for a full or partial match, individuals must earn less than $35,500, according to Pew Charitable Trusts, a nonprofit public policy group, while the limit is $71,000 for married couples.
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The match formula and delivery isn’t quite as simple as traditional workplace 401(k) plans. This one will come in the form of a refundable tax credit, meaning you would get the money even if you didn’t owe much (or any) taxes to the federal government. The money would go straight into a retirement savings plan. And many people who qualify for a match won’t be eligible for the entire amount — your adjusted gross income determines both if you qualify and for how much.
The executive order also directs Congress to establish a “permanent path” for Americans to access low-cost investment accounts and a federal matching program.
At least one such bipartisan bill already exists in both chambers: the Retirement Savings for Americans Act, introduced by two pairs of Republican and Democratic lawmakers in the House and Senate. That proposal builds upon the work of Teresa Ghilarducci, a labor economist and longtime proponent of universal retirement accounts, and Kevin Hassett, one of Mr. Trump’s top economic advisers and director of the National Economic Council.
The legislation gives eligible workers access to portable, tax-advantaged retirement savings accounts and makes more households eligible for the federal match, which would instead begin to phase out once they earn the median income, which, in 2024, was $83,730, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
“This is a huge relief,” said Ms. Ghilarducci, who is also director of the Wealth Equity Center at the New School for Social Research. “The American retirement system has failed because we expected employers to voluntarily cover everybody, and it’s taken us more than four decades to realize it’s just not going to happen.”
This isn’t the first time the federal government has tried to bolster retirement savings. In 2015, President Barack Obama created starter retirement savings accounts called myRA accounts. The first Trump administration shut down that effort in 2017.
States have also tried to help private sector workers. About 17 states have passed laws that create automated individual retirement accounts, according to Pew, where employers help workers to save with automatic payroll deductions. Employers, though, generally don’t oversee the accounts — they’re managed by a financial services firm that the states approved.
Ron Lieber contributed reporting.
Tara Siegel Bernard writes about personal finance for The Times, from saving for college to paying for retirement and everything in between.
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