Getting In on Job-Based Retirement Plans

It sounds like a bad joke: After declining or staying flat earlier in this decade, the proportion of workers participating in employment-based retirement plans increased in 2007 — i.e., just in time for this year’s financial-market collapse and the havoc it has wreaked on people’s 401(k) holdings.

A study released last month by the Employee Benefit Research Institute found the percentage of all workers participating such retirement plans rose to 41.5 percent last year, up from 39.7 percent the previous year.