April 30, 2007    Legislation pending before Congress aims to require employers that don't offer a 401(k), or any other retirement plan, to give employees the opportunity to make payroll deductions into an individual retirement account. It's called an automatic IRA.

This requirement would apply to employers with more than 10 employees

Congress hopes that the automatic IRA could give middle-income workers the push they need to save on their own. About 40 million workers would be eligible, and the nonprofit Retirement Security Project estimates annual savings could be increased by nearly $8 billion.

Yet the proposed legislation still leaves a gap in coverage.  About one-quarter of American workers are employed at companies with less than 10 employees, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute.   Employees may also choose not to participate.

The legislation appears to carry bi-partisan support as it is based on a proposal by David C. John, a senior fellow at conservative Heritage Foundation, and J. Mark Iwry, a senior fellow at the liberal Brookings Institution.