Obama Announces Initiatives to Increase Savings

WASHINGTON — President Obama, decrying the fact that millions of Americans do not have enough savings to cover their retirement, announced a package of new initiatives on Saturday to spur increased savings.

The administrative actions, which do not require new legislation from Congress, are aimed at making it easier and more automatic for people to put money into tax-advantaged retirement accounts.

“The fact is, even before this recession hit, the savings rate was essentially zero, while borrowing had risen and credit card debt had increased,” Mr. Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address. “Half of America’s work force doesn’t have access to a retirement plan at work. And fewer than 10 percent of those without workplace retirement plans have one of their own.”

Mr. Obama outlined four new initiatives, all of which are based on new behavioral research on ways to encourage people to save in a systematic way.

One key finding in that research is that people are more likely to contribute to a retirement savings account, like an employer-sponsored 401(k) plan, if they are enrolled automatically. Traditionally, workers have had to sign up for the plan, something that many people either postponed or never did at all.

Under plans with automatic enrollment, employees are signed up unless they explicitly ask not to participate.

Many large and medium-sized companies have already adopted automatic-enrollment plans, but White House officials said the new initiative is aimed at very small firms that often use a simpler system called the “simple I.R.A.”

Under the new initiative, the Labor Department will publish new guidance for small businesses on how to implement automatic enrollment for the simplified plans. It will also encourage employers to institute an automatic “step up,” which increases a person’s saving rate each year or each time the person gets a raise.

In a second move, Mr. Obama said the Internal Revenue Service will allow people to check a box on their tax returns and receive their tax refunds in the form of United States savings bonds. White House officials said about 100 million families get tax refunds each year, and the average refund is about $2,000.

In a third change, the government will make it easier for employees to contribute the money from unused vacation time and overtime to their retirement accounts. At the moment, most employers simply cash out the extra time and give the money to their workers.

Mr. Obama said the Treasury Department and the I.R.S. are also publishing an easy-to-read guide to help people understand the arcane rules governing retirement plans when people change jobs.

White House officials said the new initiatives will go into effect immediately, and come on top of two related proposals that Mr. Obama sent to Congress as part of his budget. One would compel all but the smallest employers to offer retirement savings plans, and the other would expand the saver’s tax credit, which matches a family’s savings up to $1,000 a year.