State Savings Initiatives: Lessons from California and Connecticut

The brief’s key findings are:

• California and Connecticut are seeking to provide retirement plan coverage to private sector workers who lack it.
• Both states propose a mandate on employers to either provide their own plan or automatically enroll their workers in a state Auto-IRA program.
• Both states have completed feasibility studies that offer important lessons:
  • a mandate with auto-enrollment will yield high worker participation rates;
  • employer support is mixed, but they will not discourage participation; and
  • successful implementation requires minimizing the employer burden and creating an efficient recordkeeping system and enforcement mechanism.