Trump signs order expanding workers’ access to retirement plans

The Scoop

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday that seeks to expand access to retirement plans for workers whose employers don’t provide one, two White House officials told Semafor.

The order directs the Treasury Department to launch an online marketplace for retirement plans, dubbed TrumpIRA.gov , where workers without employer-provided retirement plans can select their own. If the workers make less than $35,500 as an individual or $71,000 as a couple, they can then use that plan to claim the Saver’s Match, legislation Congress passed in 2022 that directed the federal government to match contributions from low-income workers with up to $1,000 starting next year.

Its rollout comes as the Trump administration tries to box out Democrats on affordability ahead of this year’s midterm elections. As the Iran war drags on, concerns over rising gas prices and other costs have ballooned, sending consumer sentiment plummeting .

Semafor first reported in February that officials were exploring ways to reach workers without employer-provided retirement plans, which Trump subsequently confirmed in his State of the Union address. Former President Barack Obama unveiled a similar push, the now-defunct myRA, in his 2014 State of the Union address.

Trump shut down myRA in 2017, citing “extremely low” demand that didn’t merit its high cost to taxpayers. State-run online marketplaces for retirement plans, meanwhile, have been largely unsuccessful.

But officials hope a Treasury-run online marketplace can break through to more people, particularly when advertised alongside the Saver’s Match and donor contributions, and help more Americans take advantage of both. About 54 million people who work full- or part-time do not have access to an employer-provided retirement plan, according to the Economic Innovation Group, while some 27 million who qualify for the Saver’s Match are not enrolled in a plan where they can collect it.

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The Treasury-run myRA was restricted to low-return Treasuries. Officials crafted TrumpIRA.gov — which will allow workers to filter retirement plans by factors like cost, minimum contribution, and minimum balance — to instead encourage workers to tap a more lucrative mix of investments via the private sector.

Thursday’s order also drafts Treasury, which must launch the website by the time the Saver’s Match goes live in 2027, to run an awareness campaign and issue guidance on how private-sector donors can contribute to the workers’ IRAs. There has already been a lot of interest in the latter, said one of the officials, who likened it to the Dells’ commitment to seed Trump Accounts.

In addition, the order taps Treasury and the National Economic Council to draft legislative recommendations that could expand the concept further, including by automatically enrolling workers in private-sector IRAs and by making more workers eligible for the Saver’s Match. The latter would require significant funding.

Treasury will vet the plans on the website — but not partner with specific financial institutions as it is on Trump Accounts, one of the officials said. The official said the website is not expected to bigfoot states that require employers that don’t provide retirement plans to automatically enroll their workers in a state-run IRA.

The 401(k) industry has pushed back on legislative efforts to replicate federal employees’ Thrift Savings Plan, which is not restricted to Treasuries, for private-sector workers. NEC Director Kevin Hassett, a longtime advocate for expanding the TSP , previously advocated for a related proposal that Sens. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., plus Reps. Lloyd Smucker, R-Pa., and Terri Sewell, D-Ala., reintroduced last year .

“It’s our belief that between these two things, and existing programs, that we’re going to be creating — forget about a political party, just a generation of Americans who have skin in the game,” Hassett said of the retirement push and Trump Accounts at a financial literacy event hosted by the Spark Institute last month. “I believe that in the end, when we look back at the policy legacy of this administration, that these will be two of the most transformative policies.”

Workers on average contributed more to the TSP when employers matched their contribution, the Congressional Budget Office found in 2019 .

Notable

• Trump Accounts won over Wall Street quickly, as we reported .