Small businesses are the bees knees! 🐝 They're the backbone of our nation. However, many of these precious gems don't have retirement plans in place for their employees. How come? Well, they're expensive AF. 🥴💰
But there's good news: so far, 15 states created retirement savings programs specifically for small businesses and their employees. 👛 PA recently proposed legislation to start one up, and a new survey reveals small business owners are all about it.
Here’s Five Fast Facts on how PA small businesses feel about the proposed program:
- 📈 The Cost Is Too Damn High - Out of all PA small businesses surveyed, 52% said they don’t offer a retirement plan because it's too costly to set up. Additionally, 67% are concerned about their ability to operate one.
- 📢 Step It Up - A majority (79%) of the businesses surveyed agree that PA lawmakers should do more to help residents save for retirement, and 36% say they should do “a lot more.”
- 💵 Set It and Forget It - If the state created a retirement savings initiative that would automatically enroll workers in a payroll deduction program, 75% say they would support it. Workers could also opt out of the program at any time.
- 😬 What Keeps You Up at Night? - The survey found that 70% of PA small businesses worry that their employees will not have enough money when they retire.
- 🎢 Domino Effect - Beyond the workplace, a lack in employee retirement savings could hurt taxpayers. If employees can't save enough money, they'll need to rely on state-funded social assistance programs when they retire. The more citizens who depend on these programs, the more residents will pay in taxes. Researchers estimate this issue could cost PA $19.1 billion in additional social assistance over 20 years.
🔥Bottom line: The recently-proposed Keystone Saves program would be a big help to workers who don't have a routine retirement savings plan in place. It would also make small businesses more attractive to talent that gets snatched up by big companies with fancier benefits. Taxpayers would win, as well. Triple win!
Do you work in a small business and if so, do you have a retirement plan?
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