Since late 2023, when auto portability – as delivered via the Portability Services Network (PSN) – became operational, the new plan feature has been steadily working its way from an innovative concept into a core best practice for addressing the chronic problem of retirement plan cashout leakage.

April 22 marks the 56th Earth Day, a time to reflect on our relationship with the environment and the progress made in reducing waste through recycling. While society has made strides in curbing physical waste, a similar problem persists in the U.S. retirement system: the inefficient handling of 401(k) accounts when employees change jobs.

As the Saver’s Match Program must soon transition from legislative concept to operational reality, one question looms larger than any other:

​​How will the Program operate at scale, in the real world, across tens of millions of people annually, thousands of institutions, and billions of federal dollars?

On March 5, 2025, Retirement Clearinghouse (RCH) released a landmark whitepaper – Building Out Clearinghouse Services for the U.S. Retirement System: A Blueprint for a Digital Infrastructure.

As a co-author of the paper who has also spent a great deal of time chronicling the real‑world retirement savings challenges faced by America’s mobile workforce, I believe that this paper arrives not a moment too soon.

When American workers change jobs, the fate of their retirement savings is often left hanging in the balance – especially for those with smaller accounts of less than $7,000. Historically, this segment of retirement participants has faced an uphill battle, where complex transfer processes and the lure of “sudden money” have frequently produced cashouts that undermined their long-term retirement security.

But today, with the continuing adoption of auto portability via the Portability Services Network, the story is changing.

In August 2025, two important research findings were released that build upon earlier analyses of the Saver’s Match program, scheduled to go live for the 2027 tax year.

The two new research efforts – one by Morningstar Retirement and the other by Retirement Clearinghouse (RCH) – quantify overall Saver’s Match program benefits, and model the potential size, scale and operations of the program.

Auto portability, delivered via the Portability Services Network (PSN), is revolutionizing retirement savings preservation by addressing the critical challenges of cashout leakage and account fragmentation.
 

On September 2, 1974, President Gerald Ford signed the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) into law. Since that time, ERISA has become the regulatory backbone of the retirement services industry. And on September 12, members of the industry, along with legislators, government regulators, and other private and public sector representatives, came together to celebrate ERISA’s golden anniversary in Washington, D.C. My colleagues and I were honored to be among those in attendance.

Retirement Clearinghouse (RCH) has launched two new Saver’s Match resources, which offer plan sponsors, plan providers and participants with consolidated information about the Saver’s Match program, as well as a new saver-focused tool – the Saver’s Match Estimator – which will calculate an estimated matching contribution under the program.

According to industry data, each year around 2.5 million 401(k) participants with balances less than $1,000 will change jobs, falling under the threshold where plan sponsors can automatically cash out their balances.