Trump’s Retirement Savings Plan Offers Potential Bonanza for Firms Like Fidelity

Workin’ nine to five might make you a livin’, in Dolly’s words, but it’s often not enough to build a retirement.

During his State of the Union speech last week, President Donald Trump proposed a way to change that: expanding access to workplace retirement plans for the estimated 56 million workers who don’t currently have one, nearly half of the private sector workforce.  

The details of Trump’s proposal are fuzzy, and the same goes for how it would be put into place. (Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested it could happen through the budget reconciliation process, which Congress used to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year.) But if accounts do come to fruition, they could achieve a longtime goal of industry advocates and policymakers on both sides of the aisle. They could also offer a massive opportunity for the firms behind the scenes of retirement saving, such as Fidelity Investments, the nation’s largest 401(k) plan recordkeeper. 

Sticky Savers 

Federal workers can currently save for their golden years in 401(k)-style Thrift Savings Plans (TSPs), and Trump said during his speech that the new savers would get “access to the same type of retirement plan offered to every federal worker.” But even brokers and managers who aren’t in the TSP system (BlackRock and State Street currently manage the funds offered) would benefit once millions more people start saving, says Teresa Ghilarducci, an economics professor at The New School and a proponent of universal retirement accounts. The reason? Those new wealth builders would likely start investing in assets such as a home, putting money toward education and making higher retirement contributions.

And if the government taps outside help to run these accounts, as one of the giants of retirement services, Fidelity is among a handful of wealth managers that would likely be in the running: 

• Fidelity oversees a whopping $17.5 trillion of customer assets. It directly manages $6.8 trillion as of the third quarter of 2025, up 18% year-over-year. The company also continues to expand its retirement offerings, introducing its Roth Self-Employed 401(k) late last year. 
• Fidelity is famous in part for helping revolutionize how Americans save for retirement and for popularizing target-date funds. But, like many firms that made their names before investors traded on smartphones, it’s having to implement changes to keep up with young investors. Most recently, the company launched its first stablecoin. 

Worth It? Recordkeeping is often a low-margin business, explains Spencer Look, an associate director for retirement studies for Morningstar. Companies would need more details on the requirements for servicing these new accounts and their design (particularly whether there’s auto-enrollment) to determine whether it would be advantageous to take them on.