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Most Workers at Employers Lacking Plan Would Participate if Given Access

There’s strong support for employer involvement in facilitating retirement saving. Not only that, a healthy majority of workers at employers that do not offer a retirement plan would save for retirement if they were given access to a plan, says a recent study.

In “Workers and Retirement Programs: What Are They Thinking,” the LIMRA Secure Retirement Institute found that all 61% of such workers need is access to a plan. And even more — 75% of workers — want to save for retirement through an employer-provided plan.

A majority of workers in the study of nearly 2,500 workers LIMRA conducted in June 2016 said they value the security of knowing that their retirement funds are invested with their best interests in mind and employer contributions to their retirement accounts. Those attributes were at least somewhat important to strong majorities of those workers — 91% and 89%, respectively — and very important to 58% and 54%.

But workers go further than that, LIMRA says. The report shows support for employer involvement that goes well beyond simply making a plan available. Eighty-four percent consider educational meetings and materials to be at least somewhat important; 60% think it should be mandatory for employers to contribute to employees’ accounts, and 53% think employers should be required to offer retirement plans.