President Barack Obama's New Retirement Savings Initiative

In this week’s address, United States President Barack Obama will announce new steps to make it easier for American families to save for retirement. These new initiatives will complement the president’s major legislative proposals to boost participation in IRAs and match retirement savings.

The new initiatives will:

• Expand opportunities for automatic enrollment in 401(k) and other retirement savings plans,
• Make it easier for more than 100 million families to save a portion or all of their tax refunds,
• Enable workers to convert their unused vacation or other similar leave into additional retirement savings, and
• Help workers and their employers better understand the available options for tax-favored retirement saving through clear, easy-to-understand language.

Together, these steps will expand the range of choices for workers who want to save and will make saving easier for millions of Americans.

“If you work hard your whole life, you ought to have every opportunity to retire with dignity and financial security. And as a nation we ought to do all we can to ensure that folks have sensible, affordable options to save for retirement.” - President Barack Obama.

Listen to the full audio of the Weekly Address, Saturday, September 5, 2009:


Attached is a fact sheet that outlines the new initiatives for retirement savings. The fact sheet will be live on the website at 6AM tomorrow morning.