Are More Americans Covered by Company Sponsored Retirement Plans Than We Think?

An Investment Company Institute study released last month, “Who Gets Retirement Plans and Why, 2011”, found that nearly three-quarters of those likely to save for retirement have access to a retirement plan through their employer or their spouse’s employer. Of that group, 93 percent participate. And according to the September edition of “Beyond the Numbers,” a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics monthly publication, access to retirement plans differs significantly by occupation, union status and wage level, among other characteristics. For example, the 78.7 million people without access to their own work-based retirement plan includes 61.1 million private-sector workers — but 12.7 million people in this uncovered group are self-employed and 153,000 say that they work without compensation of any type. Of the 52 million people who work for companies that don’t sponsor retirement plans, just 9.9 million, or 19 percent, don’t have access to a plan through their spouses’ employers, the ICI study found. Read more here.