A Community-Based Randomized Controlled Trial of an Educational Intervention to Promote Retirement Saving Among...

We developed and conducted a community based randomized controlled trial to evaluate the impact of an intervention to promote retirement saving among low and moderate income, predominantly Spanish speaking Hispanics, who do not have access to an employer sponsored retirement account. Our educational intervention provided participants with key information related to financial planning for retirement in Spanish and made use of "behavioral nudges" to encourage participants to open a federal sponsored retirement saving account, my Retirement Account (myRA). Among 142 participants (70 and 72 in control and treatment groups, respectively), we found a significant difference-in-difference (DD) on the proportion of those who opened a myRA. In the treatment group we had 14 percent of participants opened myRA, while in the control group we had no one. Results from a DD regression show that after controlling for observable and unobservable characteristics through our design as a randomized controlled trial, the effect of our intervention is 12 percent. When we restrict our sample to those participants who had a bank account at some point of the study, we find that the effect of our intervention is higher (17 percent). We also found that our intervention is effective increasing self-reported knowledge related to retirement saving and preparedness.