According to the National Institute on Retirement Security, 45% of employees in the private sector do not have a retirement savings plan through their job. While they can set up retirement accounts on their own, in reality only 5% do so. Due to growing concerns that many middle-class workers will slide into poverty due to the expected shortfall in personal retirement savings and dwindling Social Security benefits, California state senator Kevin de León wrote a bill in 2012 proposing the feasibility of what is now known as the Secure Choice Retirement Plan, a state-run entity that would help workers automatically contribute 2-5% of their wages towards the plan, unless they opt out. MyRA, which was launched last year by the Obama administration, exists as an option for workers with no employer-sponsored retirement plan, but it has a limit of $15,000.
See "California proposal for state-run retirement plan for private-sector workers moves forward", James Rufus Koren, The LA Times, April 7, 2016