News

How 401(k) Auto Portability Boosts Women's Retirement Savings

Writing in Kiplinger, RCH and PSN President Spencer Williams offers readers his views on the potential benefits of auto portability for women. While women face significant disparities in earnings, Williams notes that those disparities also drive a "lower amount of retirement benefits women earn compared to men" and cites research suggesting that "over the course of a generation, 116 million women will cash out nearly $290 billion in retirement savings." Conversely, if auto portability were widely adopted, Williams writes that "111 million women would preserve $753 billion (measured in today’s dollars) in our nation’s retirement system."

What Do PSCAers Want From Washington?

The 401kWire's Neal Anderson reports from the PSCA National Conference, where influential plan sponsor members attended a "build-a-bill" session, where they were live-polled on the things that they would like to see come out of Washington. 64% of those sponsors who were polled indicated that they would like to see an "auto-portability mandate" emanate from federal lawmakers.

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On Earth Day, Consider Auto Portability to ‘Recycle’ 401(k) Savings

Writing in 401k Specialist, RCH's Tom Hawkins takes the opportunity to observe the 55th Annual Earth Day and to consider how the concept of recycling applies to our nation’s 401(k) system. Hawkins characterizes the 401(k) system as having a “waste problem” that manifests in the form of excessive cashout leakage and stranded accounts. By contrast, auto portability represents a sustainable solution that ‘recycles’ small-balance accounts, and its adoption is rapidly accelerating following the operational status of the Portability Services Network (PSN).

401(k) retirement saving hits a milestone. Has it finally caught on?

USA Today's personal finance reporter Daniel de Visé examines a milestone for America's 401(k) system -- where "half of all workers in private-sector America now participate in 401(k) plans, a sign that tax-advantaged retirement savings may be catching on at last." In his piece, de Visé extensively quotes David Stinnett, head of strategic retirement consulting at Vanguard and examines recent, bipartisan retirement legislation (SECURE 2.0) which codified auto portability. de Visé summarizes the key features of auto portability, while acknowledging the ascendance of the Portability Services Network (PSN) by writing: "in 2022, a consortium of private retirement-plan providers announced a collaboration to boost the portability of small retirement accounts."

401k Real Talk Episode 148: April 16, 2025

In his recurring 401(k) Real Talk video series, Fred Barstein, Founder & CEO of The Retirement Adviser University (TRAU), covers the major 401(k) topics of interest to plan advisors. In this episode, Barstein reports on the December 2024 announcement from the Portability Services Network (PSN) regarding plan sponsor adoption. Barstein hails the accomplishment and gives substantial credit to "the Retirement Clearinghouse, led by Spencer Williams, [who] was the driving force behind the network" while individually naming each of PSN's member recordkeepers, adding that "membership is open to all recordkeepers."

Auto Portability Is Changing Retirement—Here’s Why It Matters Now

Join podcast host Rebecca Hourihan as she sits down with industry experts Spencer Williams and Neal Ringquist from Retirement Clearinghouse (RCH) to explore the game-changing innovation of auto portability. Discover how the Portability Services Network (PSN) is tackling the challenge of maintaining retirement savings as employees change jobs, what it took to bring this idea to life, and why it matters to the evolving mobile workforce.

This 401(k) Change Could Help 3 Million More Americans Afford Retirement

Adam Hardy, lead data journalist at Money.com, analyzes the recent Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) issue brief that modeled the impact of three "automatic" defined contribution features - auto enrollment, auto escalation and auto portability. By itself, the EBRI research finds that auto portability could reduce the retirement savings shortfall (RSS) by 11.4%, and if taken together with the other features "the benefits are compounded."

More Good News on the Retirement Saving Front

The American Retirement Association's John Sullivan, writing in NAPA Net, runs down "good news" in the retirement landscape, as reflected in Morningstar's 2025 Retirement Plan Landscape Report. Quoting Morningstar's Liam Mitchell, Sullivan writes that "referencing efforts to encourage widespread auto portability adoption, [Mitchell] said it 'bears watching in the coming years to see if they will help stem this flow'" of assets leaving the DC plan system.