Grant Boyken shares current best practices related to automatic enrollment and automatic escalation in the retirement savings space — and especially for state-facilitated programs.

One of the key decisions in the development of a state-facilitated retirement savings program is whether to require employers to participate if they don’t already have some type of qualifying plan available for their employees. Making a program voluntary for employers can look like the easier path to legislative success. On the other hand, employer-voluntary approaches have so far shown limited uptake and use.

States standing up retirement security programs face lots of design decisions. The biggest one - which model to use! Marketplace, MEP or Auto IRA - they’ve all got their appealing features. Focusing on your specific intended outcomes helps.