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The Potential Effects of Retirement Security Project Proposals on Private and National Saving


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This paper from The Retirement Security Project provides rough, ballpark calculations of how several recent proposals could affect private and national saving. The proposals, aimed at improving retirement security for middle- and low-income households, include automatic 401(k)s, automatic IRAs, an expanded and permanent Saver's Credit, split refund capability, and asset test reforms. With the current net national saving rate at about 2.5 percent of GDP, these proposals have the potential to raise net national saving by almost a quarter.

The Potential Effects of Retirement Security Project Proposals on Private and National Saving
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The Retirement Security Project (RSP) has advanced an array of proposals that aim to make retirement saving more accessible and more rewarding for middle- and low-income households. The proposals would:

promote the adoption of automatic features in 401(k) plans (e.g., enrollment, escalation, investment);

  • establish Automatic IRAs;
  • expand and improve the Saver's Credit;
  • allow taxpayers to split direct deposit of income tax refunds into several accounts; and
  • reform the asset eligibility tests for means-tested government programs.

The goal of this paper is to provide rough, ballpark estimates of the potential effects of these proposals on private and national saving. We calculate that the enactment and implementation of the proposals could plausibly, over the long term, raise net national saving by 0.6 percent of GDP.

Download the full PDF of the report for more information.

Date added:
Nov 21, 2006

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