A government site for all your 401(k) data?
A government watchdog that wants everyone with a 401(k) plan to be able to see information on all their accounts in one place this week asked Congress to legislate a nationwide dashboard.
In a report released Tuesday, the Government Accountability Office pointed to a shortcoming in the 401(k) system that’s also part of why it has been so successful – participants retain their retirement assets when moving from job to job. While that has helped serve the needs of an increasingly mobile workforce, it has resulted in people having multiple accounts that can be cumbersome to keep track of.
Creating a government-managed retirement plan dashboard would put the US in line with a handful of countries that help their residents keep track of savings, including Australia, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden, the GAO noted.
“All six countries use pension dashboards and other approaches to help plan participants track, manage, and consolidate their plan savings and reduce fees … [including] a centralized pension dashboard that allows participants to view their retirement savings securely online and at no charge,” the government organization wrote. “According to experts from the countries, the dashboards help participants keep track of their various workplace retirement accounts as they change jobs.”
Currently, the Department of Labor is tasked with building a retirement account “lost and found,” which was a requirement of the SECURE 2.0 Act passed in 2022. Such a system would help address the ongoing problem of “missing” participants, particularly those with small account balances, whose assets often end up being escheated to individual states as unclaimed property.
“The Retirement Savings Lost and Found database
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