Retirement plan sponsors that steer clear of automatic enrollment to save money might want to rethink things. 

According to researchers at the Washington, D.C.-based Urban Institute, given the average wage, participation, and match rates of plans it examined, savings of roughly 7 cents per labor hour almost completely offset the additional costs of 6.5 cents resulting from higher participations rates in automatic enrollment plans.

That's the sort of news that might encourage more companies to adopt auto-enrollment, a feature policymakers have been promoting as a way of addressing America's brewing retirement crisis.

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Nick Thornton

Nick Thornton is a financial writer covering retirement and health care issues for BenefitsPRO and ALM Media. He greatly enjoys learning from the vast minds in the legal, academic, advisory and money management communities when covering the retirement space. He's also written on international marketing trends, financial institution risk management, defense and energy issues, the restaurant industry in New York City, surfing, cigars, rum, travel, and fishing. When not writing, he's pushing into some land or water.