Rhode Island Is The Latest State To Help Americans Lacking A Retirement Plan At Their Job
In a Forbes column, Dan Doonan writes the Rhode Island made news this month when it became the twentieth state to establish a state-facilitated retirement savings program and the seventeenth to do so with an auto-IRA model. This action by the Rhode Island legislature means every state in New England, except New Hampshire, will now offer a state-facilitated savings program. States elsewhere in the nation are considering these programs as well, including large states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, with millions of potential beneficiaries in those states.
State legislatures are adopting these programs because they are both good policy and good politics. These programs represent a real effort to close the persistent retirement plan access gap in the U.S. At any given moment over the past 45 years, half or more of American workers have not been participating in either a defined benefit (DB) or defined contribution (DC) retirement plan through their employer. This lack of coverage means these working Americans are much less likely to save for retirement and, therefore, less likely to be financially independent after their working years have ended.
Pensions Support a Stable, Experienced Public-Sector Workforce
Public pensions help government employers retain experienced career workers, reducing costly turnover and supporting the reliable delivery of essential public services, according to a report, Workforce Turnover and Retention in the Public Sector: Insights from Public Pension Plans. The research finds that while employee departures are concentrated in the first five years of service, retention is strong among workers who remain beyond that point.
In a Forbes column, Dan Doonan writes the Rhode Island made 
