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

QUICK SUMMARY

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.

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