How the DOL is Boosting 401k Coverage for Women

DOL awards grant money to assist with 401(k) coverage increase.

DOL awards grant money to assist with 401(k) coverage increase.

Coverage is key, but so is portability when seeking access to an effective retirement plan.

In order to help workers, particularly women and those who earn lower wages, the Department of Labor announced it has awarded grants to organizations to support the planning and research of portable retirement benefit plans for low-wage workers.

Totaling $153,836 this round, the department’s Women’s Bureau released the funds under the Portable Retirement Benefits Planning grant program.

“Changes in the workplace–workers moving more frequently between jobs, being paid as independent contractors or holding more than one job–have increased the need to find ways to allow millions of workers the ability to take benefits from job to job and build greater retirement security,” according to the Bureau.

The grants will be awarded to the following recipients:

“Ensuring economic security for America’s workers, especially women and low-wage workers, is our mission at the U.S. Labor Department,” Women’s Bureau Director Latifa Lyles, said in a statement. “Today’s announcement is another step toward our goal of supporting innovation in bringing retirement security to America’s lowest paid workers.”

The bureau adds that retirement security is “essential to ensuring American workers’ long-term economic security. However, retirement wealth has not kept pace with the Nation’s aging population and other economic and demographic changes.”

It notes that almost one in three workers lacks access to a retirement savings plan, including half of workers at firms with fewer than 50 employees and  sixty-three percent of part-time workers. Furthermore, the issue is particularly relevant to women –according to the Social Security Administration, 49 percent of all elderly unmarried females receiving Social Security benefits relied on Social Security for 90 percent or more of their income.

Exit mobile version