Legislation introduced earlier this month in both the House and the Senate would require all but the smallest U.S. companies to automatically enroll employees in an individual retirement account (IRA). The Auto IRA concept is an effort to ensure that U.S. workers have enough money to retire on, given estimates that half of employees do not have access to a retirement savings plan at work.

It's not clear, however, whether the legislation will make much progress this year on Capitol Hill. Kathryn Ricard, senior vice president of retirement policy at the ERISA Industry Committee, a Washington organization that represents large companies on benefits issues, says concerns about the cost of such a program could delay its passage.

In addition, legislators have a lot of other issues competing for their attention at this point and are running out of time to deal with them, Ricard notes. "It's a low likelihood this would pass both chambers in this session and become law," she says.