{"id":169143,"date":"2025-12-05T08:02:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T08:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/169143\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T08:02:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T08:02:08","slug":"new-york-businesses-can-now-enroll-employees-in-state-sponsored-retirement-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/169143\/","title":{"rendered":"New York businesses can now enroll employees in state-sponsored retirement plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

A law taking effect in 2026 requires most employers in the state to offer retirement plan to employees<\/p>\n

BUFFALO, N.Y. \u2014 If they don’t offer a retirement plan already, businesses in New York State with more than 10 workers will be required to enroll them into a state-sponsored plan called the New York State Secure Choice Savings Program\u00a0<\/a>next year.<\/p>\n

Established in 2021, the state is finally opening enrollment for the program going into effect in 2026 and for which businesses<\/a> can enroll now.<\/p>\n

Private employers are required to participate in New York Secure Choice if they:<\/p>\n

Have been in business for at least two years;Employed 10 or more employees in New York in the previous calendar year; andDo not offer employees a qualified retirement plan already. <\/p>\n

There are also deadlines to enroll depending on the size of the employer.<\/p>\n

March 18, 2026: Employers with 30 or more employeesMay 15, 2026: Employers with 15 to 29 employeesJuly 15, 2026: Employers with 10-14 employees <\/p>\n

Despite the initial headache involving paperwork, enrollment, and compliance measures, there could be advantages for companies who opt for the state sponsored program beyond the fact there’s no cost to them to get started.<\/p>\n

“Since it’s a state program, once the employer goes through and sets it up they can wash their hands of it,” said David Ofenloch, a partner at Tarter Krinsky & Drogin LLP<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“They (employers) have to provide payroll and make the deductions and they have to keep the state abreast of what’s happening with their employees. But they don’t have fiduciary liability for it, they don’t administer it, they’re not the plan sponsor…things normally associated with a 401K program that they either had themselves or through a participating employer organization,” Ofenloch told WGRZ TV.<\/p>\n

Employees should know that if their company adopts the state plan, they then must initially participate in it, and will be subject to automatic contributions of 3% of gross income.<\/p>\n

For someone making minimum wage full time, they could see their take-home pay reduced by about $80 per month, plus a $28 annual fee.<\/p>\n

Unless they opt out of the state’s forced retirement savings program after the first 30 days.<\/p>\n

“They have the ability to disenroll,” Ofenloch said. “So if they feel they need all of their wages to meet their monthly expenses and don’t wish to put any retirement saving forward, or have other retirement savings vehicles, they can opt out. They just have to make sure to do so.”<\/p>\n

Employees should also know that they can contribute more, or less, than 3 percent if they wish, and that there is no requirement for their employers to offer any match on an employee’s contribution.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And while employers that currently offer their employees a qualified retirement plan are not required to enroll in the NY Secure Choice, they still have some work to do.<\/p>\n

That’s because they still must certify their exemption from the program by reporting certain information about their retirement plan offerings to the Secure Choice Savings Program Board, which is a seven governing body of the program.<\/p>\n

The Buffalo Niagara Partnership<\/a> is hosting a free informational session \u00a0for its member businesses on the Secure Choice Savings Program on Dec. 9.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A law taking effect in 2026 requires most employers in the state to offer retirement plan to employees…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169144,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[138,246,111,139,69,244,245],"class_list":{"0":"post-169143","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-finance","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz","13":"tag-personal-finance","14":"tag-personalfinance"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}