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Portable Non-Employer Retirement Benefits: An Approach to Expanding Coverage for a 21st Century Workforce
February 5, 2019
Financial Security Program
This paper is the product of a collaboration between the Aspen Institute Financial Security Program (FSP) and Common Wealth. Together, our two organizations aim to connect and bring a fresh, solutions-oriented perspective to two critical conversations in America: one about the future of work, the other about the future of retirement security.
America’s retirement system is seriously underperforming. Over 55 million Americans lack access to a workplace retirement plan, 3/4 are worried about their ability to maintain their standard of living in retirement, and poverty among American seniors is nearly twice that of other OECD countries. Nearly six in 10 Americans do not own a retirement account. The changing nature of work is likely to intensify these challenges. Innovative strategies involving the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors are therefore required to build an occupational safety net for the 21st century that includes broadbased retirement security.
This paper proposes an approach for expanding retirement plan coverage called portable non-employer retirement benefits — retirement arrangements that are workplace-based, but not tied to any single job or employer.
States working with the Aspen Institute Financial Security Program put forward a shared set of “North Stars” that define good public benefits delivery. Amid challenges to our benefits system, these North Stars are more important than ever.
Benefits screeners are a popular tool for increasing benefits access. This report offers a framework for benefits leaders to understand the role screeners play and assess their effectiveness.
Young adults today are coming of age in a volatile economic and political environment. We spoke with 12 young people about how they are navigating the transition to adulthood and what it means for public trust more broadly.
Young adults are grappling with sweeping changes to the U.S. benefits system under OBBBA. This paper illustrates these impacts and offers recommendations that can help young adults.
Leveraging a first-of-its-kind database, the Workers’ Wealth Lab uses retirement plan data to identify the tools and design features that can improve our retirement savings system. Read the report from the 2025 Lab.
Aspen FSP partnered with Canary, a provider of employee emergency relief funds, to explore how workers used this workplace offering when faced with financial emergencies, as well as how it impacted their financial security and experiences at work.
