Oregon announced that their OregonSaves retirement program will now allow individuals, such as self-employed or gig economy workers, to join and start participating in this program for small employers.

OregonSaves began with a pilot program in July 2017 and is expanding statewide.

Since the program launched in November 2017, workers have set aside $9 million towards retirement. Individuals can now join the 45,000 employees that have enrolled through an employer.

While I’m all for plans that increase participation to employees who couldn’t get retirement plan coverage from their employer on their own, I still think that these programs won’t become popular. When it comes to government and money, I still believe that people have a libertarian streak and don’t want government involved with their retirement savings especially with the jaded views we have about Social Security. Just look at the numbers, OregonSaves has 45,000 participants with $9 million in assets. That is $200 per participant, hardly a win to reduce the retirement plan gap.

As I have always stated, it will be multiple employer plans (MEPs) created by associations and plan providers that will be able to effectively increase participation to employees that wouldn’t have been covered under a single employer plan, just my two cents.