Investing.com -- Days after the U.S. Department of Treasury launched a retirement savings initiative designated in part to convince recent graduates to focus more intently on developing a sizable nest egg, Treasury secretary Jack Lew encouraged more Americans to enroll in the program on Wednesday.
Appearing at the Financial Literacy and Education Commission in Washington, Lew spent the majority of a brief speech extolling the virtues of the myRA program, a project expanded from a yearlong pilot program aimed at helping Americans learn to save for retirement more effectively. MyRA, according to the Treasury Department, is a Roth IRA that invests in a Treasury Department Savings Bond intended for people without access to employer-sponsored retirement savings accounts.
"It's simple, it's safe and it's affordable," Lew said in his address. "We're reaching out to people and we want to figure out what we can do to make it even more accessible, even more something that gets people started on a pathway to saving."
"One of the things about myRA that we have to keep in is it's a starter savings product. It caps out at $15,000 and the idea is that people will get in the habit of saving and roll over into commercially available products after that. But they get started by putting just a few dollars a week away. There aren't a lot of fees, it's not hard to do...it can be five dollars a week, it can be ten dollars a week. It can be what you're comfortable with."
The program does not have an initial enrollment fee and does not require a minimum amount of savings, the Treasury Department added.
"One thing we know with great certainty is that the sooner you start, the earlier you begin saving, the better," Lew said. "Partially, it's because you get into the habit and stick with it over a long period of time. Part of it is that money compounds over time when you save it, and the sooner you start the more time you have."
Last November, a study from Moody's Analytics found that the savings rate among Americans under 35 dipped to negative 2%, indicating that Millennials were spending at levels above their earnings.