Employee Benefits, Retirement Savings & Investment Freedom
PROPOSED / DRAFT: EMPLOYEE BENEFITS, RETIREMENT SAVINGS & INVESTMENT FREEDOM
POSITION
Every worker should be able to build retirement security, obtain useful benefits, understand the full value of compensation, and carry earned benefits from one job to the next. Employers may voluntarily offer benefits, but a benefit that is promised, earned, or funded must be real, honestly described, properly deposited, and delivered when due.
The government should protect workers from theft, hidden fees, self-dealing, and benefit forfeiture. It should not force every employer to operate a pension, retirement plan, or health plan, and it should not create new tax shelters that allow the same economic income to escape the uniform tax system.
REQUIRED BASIC BENEFITS FOR EMPLOYERS WITH MORE THAN 25 EMPLOYEES
An employer with more than 25 employees in the United States must offer every eligible employee the basic health coverage established under the Healthcare policy, 160 hours of paid time off each benefit year, and 12 paid holidays each calendar year.
Common ownership, common management, franchises under common operational control, labor contractors, staffing arrangements, and deliberately divided entities are counted together when separation is used to evade the 25-employee threshold.
Basic Health Coverage
The employer must make the approved basic health plan available to every employee who averages at least 21 hours of work per week. Coverage must include the medical, prescription, mental-health, dental, vision, preventive, emergency, and medically necessary care required by the Healthcare policy. Purely cosmetic or medically unnecessary treatment may be excluded.
The required employer contribution toward the employee-only basic-plan premium equals the employee's average weekly hours divided by 40, capped at 100%. The employee pays the remaining share. An employee averaging 21 hours receives a 52.5% employer contribution, an employee averaging 30 hours receives 75%, an employee averaging 35 hours receives 87.5%, and an employee averaging 40 hours or more receives 100% of the employee-only basic-plan premium.
Dependent coverage must be available. The required employer contribution is limited to the amount required for the employee's own basic coverage. The employee may be charged the additional documented cost of dependent coverage unless the employer voluntarily contributes more.
Average weekly hours are determined using the preceding 13 completed weeks. A new employee is classified using the honest expected schedule stated at hiring, followed by the actual 13-week average when it becomes available. A temporary reduction caused by approved leave, illness, military service, jury service, or an employer-directed lack of work does not reduce the employer contribution. An employer may not manipulate schedules, classifications, payroll periods, or staffing arrangements to avoid or reduce coverage.
Eligibility may not be delayed longer than 90 calendar days after employment begins. The price, employer contribution, employee contribution, deductible, maximum out-of-pocket cost, covered services, network rules, and material exclusions must be disclosed before the employee enrolls. Offering coverage at an undisclosed or fictitious price does not satisfy this requirement. Healthcare affordability assistance remains governed by the Healthcare policy and administered by the states under the federal standard.
160 Hours of Paid Time Off
A full-time employee earns 160 hours of paid time off during each benefit year. The employee may use the same paid-time-off bank for vacation, illness, medical appointments, mental-health needs, family responsibilities, personal business, rest, or another lawful personal purpose. The employer may not require the worker to identify ordinary paid time as either vacation or sick leave merely to reduce the benefit.
The employer may provide all 160 hours at the beginning of the benefit year or allow the time to accrue evenly throughout the year. Weekly accrual must equal at least 3.077 hours for each completed week of full-time employment. A different payroll schedule must produce the same 160-hour annual benefit. Accrual begins on the first day of employment. An employer may require up to 30 calendar days of employment before ordinary paid time is used, but a documented medical or family emergency may be approved sooner.
Part-time employees receive a proportionate amount based on their average weekly hours compared with a 40-hour full-time schedule. An employer may not reduce scheduled hours, repeatedly reset employment, misclassify workers, or use temporary or staffing arrangements primarily to avoid eligibility.
An employee may carry up to 160 unused hours into the next benefit year. Total accumulated paid time may be capped at 320 hours. Once the employee uses time below the cap, accrual resumes. Earned unused paid time is compensation and must be paid with the final paycheck when employment ends, unless the employee knowingly elects a direct transfer into a successor employer's compatible paid-time account.
Reasonable advance notice may be required for foreseeable vacation or personal leave. Illness, injury, emergencies, and other circumstances that cannot reasonably be scheduled are not subject to advance-notice requirements. An employer may manage overlapping requests and essential staffing through neutral written rules, but it may not make the benefit practically unusable.
12 Paid Holidays
The 12 paid holidays are separate from the 160 hours of paid time off. They consist of the 11 federal holidays and one paid floating holiday selected by the employee with reasonable notice.
For each holiday, the employer may provide the paid day off on the holiday itself, the immediately preceding scheduled workday, or the immediately following scheduled workday. The observed date must be announced in advance. An employee required to work because of healthcare, public safety, transportation, utilities, defense, hospitality, continuous production, or another legitimate operational need must receive either an alternate paid day off within 30 calendar days or the employee's ordinary pay plus an additional full day's base pay for the holiday.
Religious and cultural accommodation laws remain in force. The floating holiday may be used for a religious, cultural, civic, family, or personal observance chosen by the employee.
Eligibility, Pay Rate & Protection
Paid time is compensated at the employee's ordinary base rate for the hours that would otherwise have been worked. Regularly scheduled nondiscretionary shift differentials are included. Overtime that was not actually worked is not created solely by paid leave.
An employer may not retaliate against an employee for using earned paid time, count protected use as an attendance violation, require an employee to find a replacement as a condition of using the benefit, or demand private medical details beyond documentation reasonably necessary for an extended or repeatedly disputed medical absence.
The required health coverage, paid time off, and paid holidays are minimum standards. A collective-bargaining agreement, employment agreement, state law, or employer policy may provide greater protection. No agreement may waive the federal minimum for an individual employee.
VOLUNTARY ADDITIONAL EMPLOYER BENEFITS
Private employers may offer retirement contributions, additional health coverage, additional paid leave, disability coverage, life insurance, education assistance, child-care assistance, transportation benefits, bonuses, equity compensation, and other lawful benefits beyond the required minimum.
An employer with 25 or fewer employees is not required by this policy to create a retirement account, pension, health plan, or paid-leave plan solely because it employs people. An employer with more than 25 employees must provide the basic benefits described above but is not required to create an additional pension or employer retirement account. Existing legal requirements for wages, leave, safety, disability accommodation, military service, nondiscrimination, and other worker protections remain in force for every employer.
When an employer voluntarily promises a benefit in an employment agreement, collective-bargaining agreement, written plan, offer letter, or published compensation policy, the promise is enforceable according to its disclosed terms. The employer may change future benefits with at least 60 calendar days of clear advance notice, but it may not retroactively take away a benefit that has already been earned or vested.
EMPLOYEE OWNERSHIP & PORTABILITY
Worker contributions belong to the worker immediately. Employer retirement contributions belong to the worker when deposited and may not be taken back merely because the worker resigns, is laid off, changes employers, or is lawfully discharged.
Retirement and investment accounts established under this policy are individually owned and portable. Changing employment does not require the worker to cash out the account, sell investments, or surrender vested value.
A worker may direct a trustee-to-trustee transfer to another qualified provider. A complete transfer must ordinarily be completed within 10 business days after the administrator receives the worker's verified instruction and the information reasonably necessary to complete it. No transfer fee may exceed the documented reasonable cost of the transfer.
An employer with 50 or more United States employees must permit a worker to direct an authorized portion of wages into an individually selected qualified retirement or investment account through ordinary payroll deposit. This requirement does not compel the employer to contribute its own money, select investments, or guarantee a return. A smaller employer may offer the same payroll access voluntarily.
PERSONAL RETIREMENT & INVESTMENT ACCOUNTS
Future workplace retirement savings should use simple personal accounts rather than a collection of overlapping tax shelters. A qualified account must:
Be held for the individual by an independent regulated custodian;
Identify the worker as the owner of all vested assets;
Permit direct payroll deposits and lawful personal contributions;
Offer at least one diversified broad-market index option, one capital-preservation option, and one age-appropriate diversified option;
Provide clear risk, fee, performance, conflict, and ownership disclosures;
Permit the owner to select or change investments without employer approval;
Prohibit an employer, plan administrator, union, custodian, or government official from directing investments for partisan, ideological, or personal financial purposes; and
Protect the account from an employer's creditors, insolvency, merger, sale, or bankruptcy.
At least one diversified investment option must have an all-in annual administrative and investment fee of no more than 0.25% of assets. A worker may knowingly choose another lawful investment with a higher disclosed fee, but the higher-cost option cannot be made the default.
No return is guaranteed. Historical returns may be shown only with the time period, fees, inflation assumptions, and a clear statement that past performance does not guarantee future performance.
AUTOMATIC ENROLLMENT WITHOUT FORCED PARTICIPATION
An employer that offers payroll retirement saving may use automatic enrollment only when the worker receives advance written notice of the contribution rate, investment default, fees, and right to decline. The worker may opt out before the first deduction and may stop or change future deductions at any time through a simple process.
No employer, union, financial institution, or government agency may force a worker to contribute, penalize a worker for declining, or represent an optional contribution as mandatory.
TAX TREATMENT & NO NEW LOOPHOLES
Employee contributions are made from income already subject to the applicable individual tax rules. Employer cash contributions, matching contributions, vested account deposits, stock, and cash-equivalent benefits are ordinary compensation to the worker when they become vested and available in the worker's account.
An employer may recognize documented compensation actually paid to a worker once when calculating business profit. The same payment may not be deducted, credited, excluded, or recovered twice.
Dividends, interest, and realized investment gains are ordinary income in the year they are realized under the general tax policy. Unrealized changes in market value are not income. Withdrawal of documented after-tax principal or basis is not taxed again.
Actual third-party health, dental, vision, disability, and life-insurance coverage is not taxable cash income when the worker cannot take the benefit as cash and the coverage provides protection rather than spendable income. A cash allowance, cash-equivalent payment, refundable benefit, or amount available for personal use is ordinary income unless another expressly approved tax provision applies.
Business owners, officers, highly compensated employees, and related parties receive the same treatment as other workers. Deferred compensation, split-dollar arrangements, company-owned policies, executive plans, trusts, loans, reimbursements, stock arrangements, or related-party transactions may not be used to disguise personal income or postpone tax beyond the treatment available to an ordinary worker.
CAPITAL, INSURANCE & LOAN SAFEGUARDS
A protected retirement account may not be pledged, assigned, or used as collateral before the applicable retirement age. A plan loan, advance, insurance arrangement, or related-party transaction may not be used to create an untaxed substitute for wages or withdrawals.
Insurance purchased primarily to provide a worker or beneficiary with legitimate death, disability, medical, dental, or vision protection is governed by its actual coverage. Insurance used primarily to provide cash value, personal borrowing, disguised compensation, or employer-financed personal wealth is taxed according to its economic substance.
EXISTING ACCOUNTS & EARNED PROMISES
Existing pensions, 401(k) accounts, 403(b) accounts, 457 accounts, individual retirement accounts, Roth accounts, health accounts, and other lawfully accrued benefits are not confiscated, retroactively cancelled, or taxed twice.
Balances existing on the effective date retain their documented tax basis and previously promised tax character. Future contributions and future realized income follow the new uniform rules. Congress must publish a transition method that identifies after-tax basis, previously untaxed amounts, and future earnings so that each dollar is taxed once, but not zero times or twice.
Accrued federal pensions, retirement benefits, and employee health obligations remain honored. After the transition, the federal government does not create new employer-sponsored pensions, retirement accounts, or employee health-insurance plans. Federal workers may use the same private, portable accounts and products available to other Americans through payroll deposit.
This policy does not alter the separate one-time $10,000 public retirement account, its age-70 restriction, or its approved death-allocation formula. If a person voluntarily places additional money into that protected account, the rules of the Social Security, Senior Security & Retirement policy control the entire account.
COMPLETE COMPENSATION DISCLOSURE
Before employment begins, an employer must provide a plain-language description of material compensation and benefit terms. Each worker must receive an annual statement showing:
Wages and cash compensation paid;
Employee contributions withheld;
Employer contributions deposited;
Benefits provided and the employer's actual cost;
Vesting and eligibility status;
Fees charged to the worker or account;
Account balances and investment performance where applicable;
Material exclusions, waiting periods, expiration dates, and portability rights; and
The procedure and deadline for correcting an error or appealing a denial.
Benefits may not be advertised using a value the employer does not actually pay or the worker cannot reasonably receive. A total-compensation estimate must distinguish wages, employer costs, conditional benefits, and amounts actually owned by the worker.
PROMPT DEPOSITS & AUTOMATIC BENEFITS
Money withheld from a worker's pay for a benefit or account must be deposited with the proper administrator no later than three business days after the related payday. An employer contribution due under the plan must be deposited no later than 15 calendar days after it becomes due.
When existing government, employer, military, payroll, licensing, or school records establish eligibility for a benefit, the administrator must apply it automatically whenever reasonably possible. A person must not lose an earned benefit solely because an agency, employer, school, insurer, or administrator failed to provide duplicative paperwork. A missed benefit must be corrected retroactively to the date eligibility began.
BENEFICIARIES & DEATH
An account owner may name and update beneficiaries through a simple secure process. A separate voluntary private account passes to the named beneficiary or estate under its disclosed terms and the uniform tax rules.
The special death-allocation formula for the publicly funded $10,000 account and the entire balance held within that account remains controlled by the Social Security, Senior Security & Retirement policy.
FIDUCIARY DUTY & CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
Anyone controlling plan money or selecting default investments owes a fiduciary duty to the workers and beneficiaries whose money is affected. The fiduciary must act prudently, minimize unnecessary cost, disclose conflicts, protect account information, and place the worker's financial interest ahead of commissions, affiliates, political objectives, or personal gain.
Hidden revenue sharing, undisclosed commissions, kickbacks, self-dealing, excessive default fees, false performance claims, and steering workers into an affiliated product without full disclosure are prohibited.
CORRECTION, COMPLAINTS & ENFORCEMENT
A worker may report a missing deposit, false statement, denied earned benefit, hidden fee, unauthorized transaction, or portability obstruction directly to the employer or administrator. A clear payment or record error must be corrected within 15 calendar days after receipt of sufficient notice.
For a disputed matter, the responsible administrator must issue a written decision within 30 calendar days. An independent administrative appeal must be completed within the next 30 calendar days. A final complaint or supervisory review must be completed within the next 30 calendar days. On day 91, administrative remedies are exhausted and the worker may seek judicial review. Transferring, renaming, or reopening the matter does not restart the clock.
A worker harmed by a proven violation may recover the withheld or lost benefit, lost investment growth reasonably caused by the violation, interest, actual economic damages, reasonable attorney fees, and court costs. An intentional theft, diversion, concealment, falsification, or knowing failure to deposit money is subject to a civil penalty of at least $5,000 per affected worker or three times the amount wrongfully withheld or lost, whichever is greater.
A promptly corrected good-faith mistake that caused no material loss does not carry the intentional penalty. A person who knowingly commits theft, fraud, embezzlement, bribery, obstruction, evidence destruction, identity theft, or another independently defined crime remains subject to the ordinary criminal law. A company is institutionally responsible when the violation resulted from its policy, incentive, management direction, algorithm, repeated failure after notice, concealment, or systemic lack of required controls. Ownership or job title alone does not establish personal criminal liability.
Retaliation against a worker for reporting a benefit violation, requesting records, changing investments, declining optional participation, or assisting a lawful investigation is prohibited and carries the remedies and penalties provided under Workers' Rights.
WHAT MPA WILL MEASURE
Public reporting should track participation, voluntary contribution rates, fees, investment options, portability delays, missing deposits, benefit denials, appeal times, recoveries, fiduciary violations, employer size, account balances by income level, and whether workers are building adequate retirement security without hidden subsidies or unequal tax treatment.
Core MPA standard:
Benefits are part of compensation, not a favor and not a loophole. What a worker earns must be disclosed, deposited, protected, portable, and delivered. Employers remain free to offer benefits, workers remain free to choose, and no one may use complexity to steal the value in between.
Related policies: Workers' Rights; Taxes; Social Security, Senior Security & Retirement; Healthcare; Education; Public Benefits Administration & Portability.
Status: Proposed / Draft, not yet formally adopted.
Originally drafted: October 18, 2026.
Last updated: October 18, 2026.
Version: Draft 0.3.