How Many Are Covered by a Retirement Plan?

How many American workers are covered by a retirement plan? It depends on how you look at it.

For example, according to a recent analysis by the Investment Company Institute (ICI), nearly two-thirds (62%) of full-time, full-year private-sector wage and salary workers aged 30 to 64 work for an employer that sponsors a plan. The analysis, based on the March 2014 Current Population Survey (CPS) produced by the Census Department, goes on to note that when you filter out workers with lower earnings — those aged 30 to 44 with earnings less than $45,000 and those aged 45 to 64 with earnings less than $25,000 — retirement plan coverage rises to 70%. 

As has been noted in other reports, those are different results than are widely cited from the same CPS. In fact, the ICI report notes that among all private-sector wage and salary workers (including part-time and part-year workers, and not taking into account lower wage earners) aged 21 to 64, 53% report retirement plan coverage at work.

The ICI analysis further explains that when taking into account those who have access to an employer plan through a spouse, coverage increases to 75%.

The report concludes that “limiting the sample to those workers likely to demand retirement benefits — full-time, full-year, private-sector wage and salary workers likely to be focused on saving for retirement — 70% worked for a firm that sponsored a plan, and 75% had access to a plan either through their own employer or through their spouse’s employer.”

The report also notes that, of those workers with access to a plan — either through their own employer or through their spouse’s employer — 93% participated in the offered plan.