US. Saving at Work for Retirement: A Perk Coming to More States in 2021
Denise Geske panicked two years ago when her accountant told her about a new Illinois law that would require her to enroll her employees in a retirement savings program.
“As a small-business owner, I felt it was overwhelming,” she said. “I was terrified that I was going to be mandated to do one more thing.” Ms. Geske, co-owner of Fox & Hounds Salon and Day Spa in Bloomington, Ill., is close with her staff of 32 massage therapists, aestheticians and nail technicians.
She wanted to give them health and retirement benefits, but since 2008, when she bought the business with her sister, Casey Pirtle, providing them with a savings plan had felt beyond her reach.
Her concerns were eliminated by Illinois Secure Choice, a state-administered automatic individual retirement account program begun in 2018.
The management and cost hurdles that Ms. Geske had assumed the state would make her take on never materialized — the Illinois program, she said, is not complicated or bureaucratic, and she bears none of the cost. Her employees, the savers themselves, pay the fees — but those are kept low by the large pool of participants.
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