President Donald Trump will sign an executive order aimed at expanding access to retirement plans for workers whose employers don’t offer that benefit, according to a White House official, a bid to refocus the administration’s messaging on economic issues.
The White House official spoke on condition of anonymity to detail the order before the public announcement.
The executive order directs the Treasury Department to create a new website, to be called TrumpIRA.gov, to allow workers to find private-sector retirement plans, according to Semafor, which first reported plans to sign the order earlier Thursday.
The administration aims to sync the effort with legislation passed under former President Joe Biden that would provide contribution matches by the government, an effort to help workers boost their retirement savings, the outlet said. The Saver’s Match program under the law would provide a matching government contribution of as much as $1,000 a year for individuals with incomes below $35,000.
Trump floated the retirement savings initiative during his State of the Union address this year. At the time it wasn’t immediately clear how the plan would differ from the plan set to take effect early next year under the Biden-era law.
About 56 million private-sector employees work for companies that do not offer an employer-sponsored retirement savings plan, according to AARP.
The order comes as Trump’s approval ratings on the economy have dropped to the lowest of his two terms, a recent CNBC survey found. US consumer sentiment fell in April to a record low on worries around the economic fallout from the Iran war. The war, which has brought higher gas prices, has exacerbated voter anxiety over costs of living ahead of midterm elections in November that threaten to break Republican control of Washington.
