Most American employers have built out the retirement infrastructure. Eighty-five percent offer retirement benefits, the majority use auto-enrollment, and 64% contribute to employee health savings accounts (HSAs). What the numbers from Gallagher's 2026 Financial Benchmarks report make clear is that infrastructure and outcomes are two different things.
Only 28% of employees believe their current retirement savings strategy will enable them to achieve their goals. Just 23% have ever developed a financial plan with an advisor. Among employees with a plan, 81% rate their financial situation as good or excellent. Among those without one, 50% rate it as fair or poor.
The report draws on responses from 3,717 US organizations collected between January and March 2026, supplemented by data from the 2026 Financial Health Assessment.
The retirement participation picture looks stable on the surface. Auto-enrollment has become near-standard, with 57% of employers using it. Most match formulas fall between 50% and 100% of employee contributions, capped at 4% to 6% of pay. Immediate eligibility for defined contribution plans climbed five points from 2025 to reach 42%.
Yet nearly one in five employers report that 10% or more of their employees have taken loans or withdrawals from retirement accounts. That figure sits alongside the finding that only 27% of employees have no emergency savings, with a further 24% holding less than three months of expenses. Employees without a financial cushion draw on the nearest pool of liquid assets, and retirement accounts remain the most accessible one many workers have.
"What we're clearly seeing is growing demand for hyper-personalized support from employees," said Molly Beer, national practice leader for retirement at Gallagher. "The challenge is that delivering one-to-one guidance at scale is incredibly difficult, especially across large workforces. That's where managed accounts, advice solutions and, increasingly, technology and AI come into play."
The self-service tools are there: 81% of employers offer calculators and modeling dashboards, 68% offer scheduled appointments with financial planners, and 64% provide enrollment and investment selection advice.
The Gallagher report's SECURE 2.0 findings add a specific dimension to the access-action gap. With mandatory provisions now largely embedded in plan administration, employers are evaluating which optional features to adopt. The results are selective. Nearly half have implemented no optional provisions at all, or are uncertain whether any have been put in place.
A few have moved. Twenty-eight percent now offer a Roth option for employer contributions, up six points from 2025. Twenty-six percent increased force-out distribution limits to $7,000. But emergency savings accounts, which directly address the liquidity problem the report documents, remain rare. Only 5% of employers offer a formal emergency savings program, and just 2% report matching contributions on student loan payments.
The mismatch is notable. The provisions most likely to interrupt retirement account leakage have the lowest adoption rates.
Sixty-four percent of employers contribute to employee HSAs, and the accounts carry a well-understood triple tax advantage. The report notes that utilization patterns tell a different story. Rising deductibles and out-of-pocket costs prompt employees to draw down HSA balances for current healthcare expenses rather than preserve them for future use, which limits their value as long-term savings vehicles.
Gallagher's consultants frame employer contributions paired with education as the more effective model, helping employees understand account use and long-term planning in tandem, rather than treating the HSA contribution as the endpoint.
That framing extends to the broader financial wellbeing picture. Rory Lough, senior vice president of executive planning, described the employer's role in terms that move beyond plan access.
"Most employers are providing the benefits - retirement plans, medical coverage, disability and life insurance," Lough said. "The gap isn't whether the benefit exists. It's whether employees understand how to use it and how it fits into their broader financial picture.
"Employers don't need to be the ones giving advice. They need to be the access point, connecting employees to education and guidance that helps them make informed decisions."
On that measure, the Lincoln Financial data on financial stress published earlier this year found that two-thirds of people with a financial professional report taking steps to reduce financial stress, compared to 56% of all US adults. The Gallagher report's 23% planning rate suggests that access point remains out of reach for most workers.
