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To save, or not to save. That question might not be yours. A growing number of companies direct money from their employees paychecks to a retirement account — even after a worker has said "no, thanks." Auto-enrollment into retirement plans, of course, is not new. The practice has taken off in the workplace since President George W. Bush signed the Pension Protection Act in 2006, which said employers don't need their workers' permission to sign them up for the company retirement plan. The results have been powerful: More than 90 percent of employees participate in automatic-enrollment plans, compared with less than 60 percent in voluntary plans. (The most common default savings rate is 3 percent of a worker's salary). But while many employers auto-enroll their employees one time — typically when they first join the company — some are now doing so again and again, hoping to wear down those prone to ditching.

"If they opt out, why let it be a one-and-done thing?" said Nevin Adams, the chief of marketing and communications at the American Retirement Association. "Why not come back and give them another shot at auto-enrollment?" A second chance is also helpful for employees who began working at a company before auto-enrollment was deployed on newcomers, Adams said. "In many cases, they knew they hadn't signed up for the 401(k) plan and they were embarrassed to go ask for a form," he said. Each year, Plan Sponsor Council of America, a trade group for employers, studies the state of 401(k) plans. In 2018, it found that nearly 8 percent of the plans automatically re-enrolled employees who were not participating. In 2013, just 4 percent had done so. In Pew's 2017 survey of workers, the most common obstacle to saving for retirement that respondents cited was an unwillingness to sacrifice their current quality of life. Yet most people don't find a paycheck reduced by 3 percent or 5 percent all that disruptive — especially when they see their nest egg growing, said John Scott, the director of retirement savings at The Pew Charitable Trusts. "They eventually won't opt out if you keep re-enrolling them," Scott said.