Officials weigh creating state-backed retirement system for private industry workers

More than half of Nevada’s private sector workforce isn’t offered a retirement savings plan through their employer — a slow-moving crisis that could affect older Nevadans and cost the state millions in safety-net programs.

According to an AARP estimate, approximately 557,000 private sector workers, or 57 percent of the state’s non-governmental workforce, work for a business that does not offer any kind of retirement savings plan. It also estimates that a growing population of low-income seniors will cost the state millions of dollars in additional spending on safety net programs such as Medicaid, food stamps and housing assistance.

But Nevada policymakers are considering an alternative that advocates say could help fend off the pending crisis — a state-backed retirement savings program that would automatically enroll every Nevada private sector worker without an employer-sponsored program in a basic savings program.

The proposed “auto-IRA” program, under the title of the Nevada Employee Savings Trust, was advanced Wednesday as part of a series of recommendations by the Legislature’s interim Task Force on Financial Security. Two Republicans on the panel, Assemblyman Al Kramer and Senator Pete Goicoechea, voted against the recommendation.

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