One Big Thing
America’s tax-advantaged retirement savings system helps tens of millions of workers achieve a dignified standard of living in old age. But for all of its success, the system leaves tens of millions of other workers on the outside looking in.
With a bevy of new facts, figures, and charts, EIG senior economist Ben Glasner published in September the latest entry of EIG’s Retirement Fast Facts, a vital guide to who is able to save what for retirement and how. Here’s what Ben finds:
Access to employer-sponsored plans is split almost right down the middle, with about 48 percent of American workers aged 18–64 having such an option and the other 52 percent lacking one.
The 52 percent of workers without access number about 76 million.
Moreover, only 37 percent of all workers receive the boost of an employer contribution or match. Among workers who do have an employer contribution or match, the median sum is about $3,000 per year.
As Ben explains, the existing system tilts to the advantage of college-educated, high-earning workers. Breaking down the findings by demographic and income characteristics suggests that, while useful, the system results in some perverse outcomes, especially if we consider tax advantages as forgone tax revenue.
About 69 percent of private-sector employees with bachelor’s degrees or higher have access to employer plans, compared with just 36 percent of employees with a high school diploma. Among Black employees with a high school diploma, 29 percent have access to an employer plan; among Hispanic employees with a high school diploma, just 25 percent.
The income gradient is even steeper. Within the private sector, 84 percent of employees in the top income quintile have access to an employer plan, while only 14 percent of employees earning in the bottom quintile do.
Tax-advantaged retirement savings made in 2024 cost the federal government more than $250 billion, measured on a present-value basis.
The bottom half of workers receives only about 10 percent of retirement tax benefits.
Beginning in 2027, the Saver’s Match, passed in the SECURE 2.0 Act, will offer a government match of up to $1,000 to about 30 million workers. While the plan has some kinks, the April 2026 White House executive order establishing the TrumpIRA program could help facilitate the program’s success.
Read the latest installment of EIG’s Retirement Fast Facts here.
Research & Analysis
EIG research director Nathan Goldschlag published his detailed and comprehensive investigation into entrepreneurship trends and whether AI is already influencing them. His key findings:
Business applications for startups likely to employ workers were flat in 2025 and started rising in 2026, but fewer of them are of the type most likely to hire employees.
Applications for likely nonemployer startups rose sharply in 2025 and early 2026, but they are probably side-gigs because they don’t show up as individuals’ primary source of income.
AI doesn’t seem to have much to do with any of this beyond the surge of likely nonemployers in the information and professional services sector. (Which, again, are likely side-gigs.)
Sam Peak and Jason He analyzed the likely effects of the Department of Homeland Security’s proposed $100,000 fee on Optional Practical Training (OPT), a program that allows international students to work in the United States after graduating. “Regardless of whether this fee falls on schools, employers, or the students themselves,” they write, “it will be the American people who bear the costs. OPT constitutes America’s most important pipeline for retaining the world’s most promising scientists and inventors.”
Policy
As states finalize the next round of Opportunity Zone nominations, EIG’s new guide, OZ 2.0: What Comes After Zone Designations, offers a practical playbook for turning OZ status into lasting economic impact. Drawing on lessons from OZs 1.0, Kenan Fikri and Catherine Lyons outline strategies for state and local leaders to cultivate local investment ecosystems, prepare communities for investment, help high-impact projects get across the finish line, and connect local residents, workers, and entrepreneurs to the opportunities that follow.
Jiaxin He and Sam Peak submitted a public comment criticizing DHS’s proposed $103,265 fee on H-1B visas. They point out numerous mathematical and conceptual flaws in the fee rule’s analysis, finding that the fee could lead to the H-1B program being undersubscribed by 27,000 and raising $2.8 billion less revenue than the agency projects. He and Peak also point out that the rule undermines the White House’s stated goal of “attracting and retaining top-tier global talent in critical national security science and technology fields” because the rule advantages older, less skilled workers at the expense of retaining today’s most promising young professionals. The rule, they point out, is explicitly designed under the assumption that “an employer’s willingness to shoulder the fee is proportional to how much their H-1B hires are underpaid.”
Around the Horn
In Politico, Kelsey Brugger and Brian Faler quoted EIG president John Lettieri on the blue-collar jobs that data-center construction can create in Opportunity Zones.
In the New York Times, Lydia DePillis quoted EIG senior fellow Kenan Fikri on Americans’ declining propensity to move across the country.
In Bloomberg Law, John Kreighbaum quoted EIG policy manager Sam Peak on the Trump administration’s $100,000 H-1B fee.
In Plan Advisor, Valentina Baez highlighted a new report from EIG senior economist Ben Glasner on American workers’ access to employer-sponsored retirement accounts.
In National Review, John Fund quoted EIG research from Kenan, Ben, and Sarah Eckhardt on American communities’ reliance on government transfer income.
In the Washington Sun, Jade Lozada cited work from Ben, John, and Adam Ozimek on housing and Opportunity Zones.
In City Journal, EIG fellow Jordan McGillis reported on Alaska’s blue-collar labor market.
Also in City Journal, Jordan celebrated the renter-friendly provisions in the ROAD to Housing Act, passed by Congress this summer.
And in Vital City, Jordan penned an analysis on the status of middle-class families in New York’s tight housing market.
EIG Charts of the Month
Nathan Goldschlag’s analysis of entrepreneurship trends includes this chart, which shows that business applications are falling for the two kinds of startups — those that register as corporations and those that give a date for when they will start paying wages — most likely to eventually become actual job-creating businesses.
From the OPT analysis by Sam Peak and Jason He, a chart showing the share of foreign higher-education graduates of American universities end up staying in the United States after graduation.
