Many Connecticut small businesses favor an impending voluntary public retirement savings option for the approximately 750,000 residents who lack one as a competitive edge, an AARP survey says.
The major affinity and lobby organization for aging Americans said Monday it surveyed more than 450 owners of businesses statewide with five to 50 employees about the issue. Few said they offer retirement-savings plans to their workers.
Connecticut’s governor last year signed a legislative measure authorizing creation of its public retirement savings plan. An oversight authority also was created that is hammering out the implementation and operational framework for the financial amenity into which individuals and/or their employers could contribute.
One main feature of such a plan, experts say, is its “portability,’’ meaning an individual would own her account and funds whether she spent a career with one or multiple employers.
“Connecticut is leading the nation in efforts to improve the financial security of its residents by creating an affordable, accessible retirement savings plan that would make it easier for small businesses to offer retirement accounts to their employees,” AARP Connecticut Director Nora Duncan. “Small businesses in Connecticut support this effort because they know it will help improve the financial security of their employees – and their bottom line.”
Among the key findings:
- More than 60 percent said they support a Connecticut retirement savings plan, and nearly 80 percent agreed that Connecticut should be doing more to encourage residents to save for retirement. Those surveyed said they favor low-cost, voluntary plans that would follow employees from job to job, offering flexibility and security for the future.
- The survey found that two in five small business owners do not provide a retirement savings plan to their employees, and about one in five do not even have a retirement plan for themselves. The most common reason cited was cost (49 percent). However, 64 percent of those who do not currently offer a retirement plan said they would use the public plan if it was offered.
