Small businesses, it is often said, power the nation's economy. Firms with fewer than 500 employees represent 99.9 percent of all businesses, according to the Small Business Administration. Upwards of 55 million people work for businesses that do not sponsor retirement plans. That coverage gap widens among small businesses. Only 48 percent of employees in firms with less than 50 workers have access to a workplace retirement plan, compared to 91 percent in firms with more than 500 workers. In 2011, Vanguard began targeting the small plan market when it launched the Vanguard Retirement Plan Access, or VRPA, unit of its recordkeeping arm, which specifically serves plans with less than $20 million in assets. On average, VRPA plans have 43 participants and $2.4 million in assets. Vanguard's annual report on data from 11,300 plans and 480,000 participants under the unit gives a window into the good, the bad, and the ugly of small retirement plans, and just how impactful automatic enrollment is to generating savings. READ MORE: |
Complete your profile to continue reading and get FREE access to BenefitsPRO, part of your ALM digital membership.
Your access to unlimited BenefitsPRO content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking benefits news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical converage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
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.
