Nearly half of the private sector labor force—or 55 million Americans—works for an employer that does not offer a workplace retirement plan. The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement, or SECURE Act, is designed to close that gap by relaxing existing restrictions on joining Open Multiple Employer Plans, which allow small employers to pool employees under one defined contribution plan, creating purchasing power by scale, and mitigating participating employers' fiduciary risk and administrative burdens. Related: 5 facts explain why small employers don't sponsor retirement plans The SECURE Act also includes tax incentives for new sponsors of stand-alone retirement plans, and incentives for employers to adopt automatic enrollment features in existing plans. When the Joint Committee on Taxation scored the version of the bill in the House of Representatives, where it ultimately passed in May by a near unanimous vote, it estimated the Open MEP provision would create about 700,000 new retirement accounts over 10 years. Now, the SECURE Act is in a holding pattern in the Senate, despite hopes that it would sail through by the August recess. That's not likely to happen by next week, leaving the bill's proponents to turn their attention to the upcoming fall appropriations process. The American Retirement Association, which is lobbying for passage of the SECURE Act, has created new research breaking down the nation's retirement plan access gap on a state-by-state basis. Nationwide, 4.89 million employers do not provide a retirement plan, according to the ARA, leaving 28.3 million full-time employees without access to a workplace plan. ARA cites data from Vanguard research showing that workers earning between $30,000 and $50,000 a year are 12 times more likely to save for retirement at work as opposed to on their own. "It's important to show what the problem is at the state level," said Will Hansen, chief government affairs officer for the American Retirement Association. "We wanted to get the data out there to show lawmakers in the Senate what the coverage gap is in their home state." Check out the slides above to see the numbers on the retirement plan coverage gap in the nation's 10 most populous states. Read more: |

• What the SECURE Act means for annuities in 401(k)s
• Even with Open MEPs, state-run IRAs, millions still without retirement plans
• SECURE Act not clear on whether providers could sponsor Open MEPs