Retirement Plan Access - It's Two Thirds, not Half

Critics of the employer retirement system continuously state that only 50 percent of workers at companies have access to a retirement plan where they work, and this has not changed for years. They are wrong. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics in their March 2009 “Program Perspectives on Retirement Benefits: Issue 3” http://www.bls.gov/opub/perspectives/issue3.pdf reports what’s really going on. According to Table 3 of the report, in March 2008 67 percent of ALL (emphasis added) private industry workers had access to either a defined contribution plan or a defined benefit plan. 62 percent had access to a defined contribution plan. The numbers for full-time workers are even better. According to other BLS reports, 71 percent of full-time workers had access. We are not satisfied with these results, but it's time to recognize that we are making significant progress.

David