A publicly offered retirement fund scheduled to start in January 2025 is still in the planning stages.
The goal of Delaware EARNS is to provide both workers and employers access to low-cost retirement savings plans.
State Treasurer Colleen Davis says the program was created to address a looming retirement crisis. 39% of Delaware workers do not have an easy way to save through a retirement program at work.
Delaware EARNS would automatically enroll them into a state-facilitated retirement savings plan.
Davis says the pandemic brought this issue to the forefront.
"But one of the things that happened during the pandemic was on the federal level in the CARES Act there was an attempt to try to help support people by allowing them to make withdrawals from their 401k plan, and what we found was that we're missing a lot of Americans and particularly a lot of Delawareans in offering that ability to withdraw funds," said Davis.
As for employers, Delaware EARNS would especially help small businesses who aren’t able to offer retirement plans because of financial reasons.
Davis says there are still some procedures and policies that need to be created to get the program up and running.
"That connectivity to the data sharing between Treasury and Department of Labor, and it really is kind of the outreach boots on the ground type of outreach that needs to happen between my office and all of the small businesses that we plan to serve," said Davis.
The Delaware EARNS Program Board meets this week, and again in July and October to develop program policies and procedures with input from committees examining issues such as investment and program governance and auditing.
The latest in a series of a public forum to build awareness of the program is set for May 4 at the Living Grace Worship Cathedral in Middletown.
