While small-balance retirement savings accounts have fared poorly in the past, their future has never looked brighter. Real progress is being made in reducing their numbers while simultaneously preserving and consolidating their savings, vs. previous “solutions” that encouraged them to cash out or exiled them to dead-end safe harbor IRAs.

The increase in the automatic rollover threshold from $5,000 to $7,000, as provided for in section 304 of the SECURE 2.0 legislation, will become effective for mandatory distributions made after December 31, 2023.

What will be the impact of these provisions, if fully embraced by plan sponsors? One thing is certain – on both a one-time and ongoing basis, far more terminated participants will be subject to the automatic rollover provisions of their former-employers’ plans.

Anyone of sufficient age who exercises regularly knows that gains become harder as you grow older. While improvements are possible, increased effort doesn’t always work. Instead, older fitness aficionados dial in the quality and efficiency of their workouts to experience continued gains.

The 401(k) cashout leakage problem is once again in the news, with the publication of an alarming study by academics, as well as new data from Fidelity Investments revealing a cashout leakage ‘danger zone’ facing participants between the ages of 30-39.

These studies, combined with the mounting weight of empirical evidence gathering for more than a decade, confirm that 401(k) cashout leakage is a huge, persistent problem.

At a time when terms like “inflation,” “gas prices,” “recession,” and “volatility” dominate chatter about the U.S. economy, plan sponsors and recordkeepers are likely fielding questions and concerns from participants. Every dollar counts when saving for a financially secure retirement, especially with the present volatility in the financial markets. But while investment fund options, asset classes, and fees are important for helping participants weather inflation and save more, there is another way that sponsors and recordkeepers can help participants protect, and increase, their retirement savings in the New Year—facilitate portability.

America’s Leading 401(k) Providers & Retirement Clearinghouse Collaborate to Implement a Nationwide Network for Auto Portability

The observance of National 401(k) Day on Friday, September 9^th is an opportunity to reflect on the long-running, highly successful public-private collaboration that has fostered the rapid ascendance of America’s 401(k) system.

It’s my belief that this partnership will continue to drive innovations that will expand and improve the 401(k) system for millions of Americans – not only helping them to save more but preserving more of their savings for retirement.

Retired Baby Boomers who are saving for retirement through defined contribution plans like 401(k)s are drawing down their savings faster than their counterparts in previous generations who had pensions and other defined benefit plans, according to recent industry research. And on top of that, Baby Boomers who may be relying solely on their defined contribution plans may wind up with less savings for retirement than their counterparts who waited longer to withdraw savings from their defined benefit plans—and could, therefore, outlive their nest eggs.

A newly proposed bill -- the Advancing Auto Portability Act of 2022, co-sponsored by Senators Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), will offer tax credits to plan sponsors who implement auto portability, and codify rules for an industrywide auto portability network. The bill is expected to be rolled into the Senate version of the bipartisan Securing a Strong Retirement Act of 2022, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives on March 29 of this year.

Here are five reasons why the new auto portability legislation introduced in the Senate is so important.

Over the past 15 years, a very large (250,000+ participants) 401(k) plan sponsor that our company has had the opportunity to serve has been highly successful in delivering improved participant outcomes by incrementally adopting a full program of retirement savings portability.

Were the plan’s experience set to music, it could be described as “401(k) Portability in Four Movements” – opening with discordant levels of cashout leakage but quickly building towards more satisfying participant outcomes, including substantial improvements in the preservation and consolidation of retirement savings.