Writing today in the Wall Street Journal, Robert Pozen, chairman of MFS Investment Management, offers a simple proposal to boost Americans' savings for retirement:

A bipartisan Congress should harness these forces of inertia and mandate that all employers not otherwise offering a retirement plan establish a check-off IRA (CIRA) for employees. An employer could take out a minimum percentage (e.g., 3%) of their employees' wages from their paychecks, tax deductible in the year of contribution. But employees would have 60 days from their enrollment date to increase their contribution rate, or to opt out completely of any payroll deduction. The employer utilizing this auto-enrollment approach would be protected from legal liability by a safe harbor, if the employer followed specified procedures and provided specified disclosures.

A concrete proposal for this kind of automatic IRA already exists. It's called, conveniently enough, the Automatic IRA, and it was proposed earlier this year by a diverse pair that commands strong bipartisan respect: Heritage's David John and Brookings' J. Mark Iwry. In addition to legal indemnification for employers offering Auto-IRAs, the pair propose temporary tax credits to tempt small employers to offer the option to their employees.

As Pozen points out, financial institutions would jump at the opportunity to administer auto-IRA-type programs, and workers would enjoy full portability of their accounts as they move between jobs.

It doesn't matter which party is in charge of Congress. This is an idea that's ready for Congress's consideration.