Washington will be the first state with an online retirement marketplace
Washington state will soon become the first in the nation to offer workers a mechanism to save for retirement – even if employers don’t.
State lawmakers in 2015 passed a law to create a new Small Business Retirement Marketplace. Beginning Jan. 1, 2017, employees of small companies can set up retirement accounts through an online portal. The new marketplace will be similar to the Washington Health Exchange, which offers health insurance for people in the state.
Only 35 percent of Washington state’s 137,000 small businesses offer retirement plans to full-time employees, and only 13 percent offer plans to part-time workers, according to the Washington state Department of Employment Security.
The department estimates 1.1 million people in Washington, or 45 percent of all workers in Washington state, have no retirement plan.
http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2016/07/08/washington-will-bethe-first-state-with-an-online.html?ana=e_ae_set3&s=article_du&ed=2016-07-08&u=ColXVN5SPzQtLHFP87ho2w07857290&t=1468022706&j=74713772
