SACRAMENTO, CA - With the introduction Friday of the Automatic IRA Act of 2010, Congress has joined the effort to address the retirement security crisis spearheaded at the state level in California, by making retirement saving easy and automatic through payroll deduction.

"Millions of hard-working Californians have no opportunity to save for retirement through their employment, and the ones who do often set aside the complicated forms necessary to sign up for retirement savings plans," said Assemblyman Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles), the author of AB 125, the California Employee Savings Program. "Every hard-working American should be given the opportunity to save for retirement, and they shouldn't have to plow through a mountain of paper work to access such plans.  I'm pleased Congress is turning its attention to retirement security and I will continue to push the issue in the State Legislature."

Authored by U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), a member of the Senate Finance Committee, and coauthored by U.S. Senator John Kerry (D-MA), the bill brings the widely-researched effectiveness of automatic saving to the national policy stage and brings a much-needed momentum to the policy endeavors encouraging Californians to save for their retirement.

An estimated 43 percent of Californians are employed in jobs that offer neither a pension nor a retirement savings plan to supplement Social Security. Ten million California workers who do not participate in an employer-sponsored retirement plan stand to benefit from the creation of Auto IRA accounts.

"The need to advance innovative retirement savings opportunities to supplement social security is clear," said Olivia Calderón, California Legislative Director of the Asset Building Program of the New America Foundation, a think tank advocating for a similar proposal in California. "An Auto-IRA will provide small businesses and workers a easy, low-cost, portable way to save the way we know people save best - through payroll deduction."

Advised by New America's Asset Building Program and in partnership with AARP, Assembly Member Kevin De Leon (D-Los Angeles) introduced AB 125 to establish the California Employees Savings Program to provide portable retirement savings accounts that workers can freely take with them from job to job.

"An Auto IRA account would give millions of Americans a low cost, commsense way to save for their future. AARP supports Assemblyman De Leon's legislation at the state level and we are pleased to see that Senator Jeff Bingaman has introduced Auto IRA legislation at the federal level," said Ernie Powell, Senior Manager of Advocacy for AARP California. "As we celebrate the 75th anniversary of Social Security, we remind ourselves that Social Security was never intended to be the sole source of retirement savings for people as they age. By passing Auto IRA legislation, more than 40 million workers will have an opportunity to build a nest egg for their retirement years."

New America's Asset Building Program has long called for the creation of automatic retirement account to help California workers save for retirement through payroll deduction. Additional information is available here.

For interview requests, please contact Elizabeth Wu at (510) 295-9859 or wu@newamerica.net.