Putnam Urges Congress to Pass Auto-IRA Legislation

As Congress gears up to starts its fall session, Putnam Investments is wasting little time in pressing lawmakers to pass auto-IRA legislation.

Two bills that were introduced before Congress broke for its summer recess–H.R. 6099, the Automatic IRA Act of 2010, introduced by Richard Neal (D-Massachusetts) and S. 3760, the Automatic IRA Act of 2010, introduced by Jeff Bingaman (D-New Mexico) and co-sponsored by John Kerry (D-Massachusetts) –both require that companies with more than 10 workers automatically enroll their employees in a payroll-deduction IRA (known as auto-IRAs) if they are not already covered by an employer-sponsored retirement plan. Putnam says instituting an auto-IRA law would extend retirement savings coverage to the nearly half of all American workers who have no retirement savings plans through their jobs today.