How Do Firms Respond to State Retirement Plan Mandates?
Working Paper 31398
DOI 10.3386/w31398
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We investigate how state “Auto-IRA” mandates affect firm offerings of employer-sponsored retirement plans (ESRPs). These policies require firms without ESRPs to facilitate automatic employee contributions to state-created individual retirement accounts (IRAs). We find that these policies increase an individual’s probability of working for a firm with an ESRP by 6-9 percent and of being included in the ESRP by 8-13 percent. At the firm level, these policies increase the probability of offering an ESRP by 7, the probability of establishing a new ESRP by 41-44 percent, and the number of ESRP participants by 6 percent.
Non-Technical Summaries
- In 2017, Oregon became the first state to implement an auto-enrollment Individual Retirement Account (IRA) program. Illinois and...