Building Emergency Savings Through Employer-Sponsored Rainy-day Savings Accounts

John Beshears, James Choi, Mark Iwry, David John, David Laibson and Brigitte Madrian

No 26498, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Many Americans live paycheck to paycheck, carry revolving credit balances, and have little liquidity to absorb financial shocks. One consequence of this financial vulnerability is that many individuals use a portion of their retirement savings during their working years. For every $1 that flows into 401(k)s and similar accounts, between 30¢ and 40¢ leaks out before retirement (Argento, Bryant, and Sabelhaus 2015). We explore the practical considerations and challenges associated with helping households accumulate liquid savings that can be deployed when urgent pre-retirement needs arise. Automatically enrolling workers into an employer-sponsored “rainy-day” or “emergency” savings account—terms that we use interchangeably in this paper—funded by payroll deduction could be a cost-effective way to achieve this goal. We explore three specific implementation options: (a) after-tax employee 401(k) accounts; (b) deemed Roth IRAs under a 401(k) plan; and (c) depository institution accounts. We evaluate the pros and cons of each approach and conclude that all three approaches merit exploration and field testing.

JEL-codes: D14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age and nep-ore
Note: AG LS
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Published as Building Emergency Savings through Employer-Sponsored Rainy-Day Savings Accounts , John Beshears, James J. Choi, J. Mark Iwry, David C. John, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian. in Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 34 , Moffitt. 2020

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Journal Article: Building Emergency Savings through Employer-Sponsored Rainy-Day Savings Accounts (2020)
Chapter: Building Emergency Savings through Employer-Sponsored Rainy-Day Savings Accounts (2019)
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