Millions of working Americans do not have access to retirement plans at work. No. 401(k). No employers match. No automatic payroll deductions position them for the future. Their own willpower alone – and for most people, willpower alone does not build a retirement fund.
President Donald Trump has signed an executive order aimed at fixing this.
Here are five things you need to know.
1. The scale of the problem is staggering
According to data from the Economic Innovation Group, about 54 million Americans do not have access to any type of employer-sponsored retirement plan. This figure, while shocking, does not reflect how concentrated the pain actually is.
Research from AARP shows that nearly 80% of workers without a workplace retirement plan earn less than $53,000 per year. Small business employees have been particularly hard hit – about 78% of companies with nine or fewer employees offer no retirement benefits at all.
Minority workers bear a disproportionate share of this burden. According to AARP, approximately 63% of Hispanic workers, 52% of Black workers and 44% of Asian American workers do not have access to a workplace savings plan.
Its consequences continue to grow for decades. As we discovered in “The Retirement Crisis: 6 Inconvenient Truths for Aging Americans,” without automatic payroll deductions and employer matching, workers not only save less — they often save nothing at all.
2. Here’s what the order actually does
The executive order directs the Treasury Department to launch a new website – TrumpIRA.gov – by January 2027. It’s timed to coincide with the launch of Saver Match (more on that in a moment).
The site will function as a marketplace. Workers without employer-sponsored plans can browse verified, private-sector IRAs and filter options based on cost, minimum contributions and minimum balances.
Treasury will investigate the plans that appear on the site — but unlike Trump accounts for children, the administration will not formally partner with specific financial institutions, according to semaphore.
The order also directs Treasury to issue guidance for private sector donors who want to contribute directly to workers’ IRAs — an aspect that is already generating significant interest, White House officials told Semaphore.
3. There’s a $1,000 government match on the table
This is where it gets really interesting.
A provision in the SAFE 2.0 Act of 2022 – called the SAVER Match – takes effect in January 2027. It directs the federal government to match up to 50% of retirement contributions, up to a maximum of $2,000 per year, for single workers earning less than $35,000.
Run the Numbers: Contribute $2,000 and collect $1,000 from Uncle Sam. This is a guaranteed 50% return before one dollar hits the market.
This is the catch. You need a qualified retirement account to collect it. About 27 million workers earning below that threshold currently have no such plan. Today’s executive order is specifically designed to close that gap before matches begin next year.
If you’re not already familiar with the Related Savers Credit – this program evolved from a current tax exemption – we’ve broken it down here. The Incoming Saver’s Match goes further by depositing matching funds directly into your retirement account instead of reducing your tax bill.
4. It’s smarter than before
This is not the first time a president has attempted to close the retirement coverage gap. Obama’s myRA program, launched in 2014, put workers’ savings exclusively into U.S. Treasury bonds – safe on paper, but with historically lower returns than diversified stock portfolios for decades.
The current approach avoids that trap. By directing workers toward means-tested private-sector IRAs rather than government-run accounts, the order gives them access to the diverse investment options that federal employees already enjoy through thrift savings plans.
For a 30-year-old with no retirement plan, that difference — a diversified portfolio of Treasury bonds versus a portfolio — could easily translate into hundreds of thousands of dollars by the time they retire.
5. What happens next – and what you should do now
The order also directs Treasury and the National Economic Council to draft legislative recommendations that could further expand the program – potentially including automatic enrollment and broader income eligibility for the match. According to Semaphore, those changes would require congressional action.
If you live in one of these 17 states California, Oregon, Illinois, Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland and Virginia already have auto-IRA programs established — the new order is not expected to override those programs. It is designed to complement them.
As for what to do today: Don’t wait for TrumpIRA.gov.
If you’re among the 54 million workers without a workplace retirement plan, you can open an IRA at any major brokerage right now. If your income is eligible, you are already eligible for the Current Saver’s Credit. And when Saver Match launches in 2027, you’ll need a qualifying account to collect it.
Once you’ve got that account open, “Here’s where to put your next retirement dollar for maximum growth” tells you how to prioritize it.
Teresa Ghilarducci, a labor economist at The New School who has spent decades studying the retirement savings gap, called the proposal a meaningful step toward broader coverage — while also saying it doesn’t change the voluntary structure that has historically allowed those gaps to persist.
This is the right thing. This is not a complete solution. But for the 54 million workers who don’t have a plan, getting a plan is your start.