Treasury Ends Obama-Era Program to Help Workers Save for Retirement<br />By TARA SIEGEL BERNARDJULY 28, 2017<br />An Obama-era program that created savings accounts to help more people put away money for retirement<br />is being shut down by the Treasury Department, which deemed the program too expensive.<br />The myRA program was deemed a conservative way to save because account owners could not lose money, though they would not see the potential returns<br />that come with a diversified portfolio of stocks and bonds.<br />The myRA program has cost $70 million since 2014, according to Treasury, and would cost $10 million annually going forward.<br />The funds were invested in United States Treasury savings bonds, which paid the same variable rate as<br />the Government Securities Fund, available to federal employees through the government retirement plan<br />The 30,000 participants in the program, known as myRA<br />and intended for people who did not have access to workplace savings plans, will receive an email on Friday morning alerting them of the closure.<br />Since then, about 20,000 accounts have been opened with participants contributing a total<br />of $34 million, according to the Treasury, with a median account balance of $500.
