Imagine putting away $2,000 a year for retirement and watching the federal government drop another $1,000 into your account, with no strings attached from your employer.
That scenario moved within reach of many more workers when President Donald Trump signed an executive order designed to reshape how millions of overlooked workers save for their post-career years.
The order targets a gap that has persisted for decades in the American retirement system. Roughly 56 million private-sector workers have no access to a 401(k) or any other employer-sponsored plan, the Pew Charitable Trusts reported in its 2025 research.
Those workers include part-time employees, independent contractors, gig workers, small-business staff, and the self-employed. The new executive order aims to build a centralized federal platform and link it to a bipartisan government matching program set to launch in 2027.
TrumpIRA.gov will give workers a federal marketplace for retirement plans
The centerpiece of the executive order is a new government-run website called TrumpIRA.gov, which the Treasury Department must build and launch by Jan. 1, 2027.
Workers who lack an employer-provided retirement plan will be able to use the site to filter, compare, and enroll in private-sector individual retirement accounts based on cost, investment options, and quality standards, according to the White House fact sheet.
The executive order sets strict guardrails for the plans listed on the site. Each IRA provider must keep its overall annual expense ratio, including management fees and administrative costs, limited to 0.15% of an account holder’s balance.
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Providers are also barred from imposing minimum contribution or minimum balance requirements, a provision that removes one of the biggest barriers low-wage workers face when opening traditional brokerage accounts.
The platform draws inspiration from the Thrift Savings Plan, which serves more than six million federal employees and military personnel and is known for its low-cost, index-based investment options, Axios reported.
The Saver’s Match gives eligible workers up to $1,000 in government funds
The executive order is designed to work alongside the Saver’s Match, a bipartisan provision created by the SECURE 2.0 Act, which Congress passed in 2022 during the Biden administration.
The Saver’s Match replaces the older Saver’s Credit, which the lowest-income workers largely couldn’t use because, as a non-refundable tax credit, it provided no benefit to filers with little or no tax liability.
Under the Saver’s Match rules, the federal government will contribute up to $1,000 per year for individual filers and $2,000 for married couples filing jointly. The match equals 50% of the first $2,000 a qualifying worker contributes annually to an IRA or employer-sponsored plan, the Congressional Research Service confirmed in its analysis of the SECURE 2.0 provisions.
Single taxpayers earning up to $20,500 in modified adjusted gross income qualify for the full match, while those earning between $20,500 and $35,500 receive a reduced match that gradually phases out.
Joint filers with household incomes below $41,000 receive the full benefit, and the match phases out completely at $71,000, U.S. News reported.
Experts are divided on whether the plan will close the retirement gap
Teresa Ghilarducci, a professor at The New School who co-authored research in 2021 with National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett on access to retirement savings for lower-income workers, praised the order’s ambition.
“Establishing a universal retirement system to complement Social Security was always needed, and its time has come,” said Teresa Ghilarducci, professor at The New School for Social Research, as CNBC reported.
Shai Akabas, vice president of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, described the executive order as a meaningful step toward connecting lower-income workers with savings tools. He pointed out that most people without employer plans are unlikely to take proactive steps on their own and noted that easier channels and better information could make a measurable difference.
However, not all financial professionals share that optimism. Clark Randall, director of financial planning at Creekmur Wealth Advisors, argued that the order offers little that is genuinely new. He characterized TrumpIRA.gov as essentially a branded website that provides access to traditional and Roth IRA options already available in the marketplace, U.S. News reported.
Voluntary participation could limit how many workers benefit from the TrumpIRA
One of the biggest questions surrounding the executive order is whether voluntary enrollment will generate enough participation to narrow the retirement coverage gap.
A Morningstar analysis published ahead of the signing estimated that roughly 32.3 million workers would enter the retirement savings system under a hypothetical federal auto-enrollment plan, even after accounting for opt-outs. The executive order, however, relies on workers taking the initiative to visit TrumpIRA.gov and select a plan themselves.
Automatic enrollment would require congressional action, and the order includes a directive for the Secretary of the Treasury to draft legislative recommendations that could eventually add auto-enrollment and expand income eligibility for the Saver’s Match to a broader pool of earners, according to the executive order text.
Congress holds the key to making the retirement expansion permanent
The executive order instructs the White House to work with Congress to propose legislation that will expand both coverage and the savings credit, CNBC reported.
“To take it to the next level, we need congressional approval, which should be very easy to get. It should be bipartisan,” President Trump said at the signing. Two pieces of legislation already under consideration in Congress could provide a framework for those broader ambitions.
The Retirement Savings for Americans Act proposes portable, tax-advantaged accounts, while the Automatic IRA Act would require employers with more than 10 workers to enroll employees in automatic IRAs or similar contribution plans.
Cumulative American retirement wealth could increase by as much as 77%, adding up to $1.35 trillion in projected savings over a decade, though those upper-bound figures assume Congress also adds auto-enrollment and doubles the Saver’s Match, according to Morningstar.
For the millions of Americans who have watched co-workers and neighbors build retirement balances while their own futures remain unprotected, the executive order represents a concrete first step.
Whether it becomes a lasting shift depends entirely on whether lawmakers follow through with the legislative framework the administration has requested.
