Do Older Workers Without Benefits Find Health and Retirement Coverage?

The brief’s key findings are:

• Workers in nontraditional jobs, without health and retirement benefits, have to seek coverage elsewhere.
• On the health side, most do obtain coverage – often through a spouse’s employer or a private individual policy.
• And the percentage remaining uninsured has been declining in the wake of the Affordable Care Act, particularly in states that expanded Medicaid coverage.
• On the retirement side, workers often end up with no viable option, as they rarely open an IRA and their spouses with a 401(k) do not save more to compensate.
• The failure on the retirement side highlights the need for auto-IRA programs.