Cassidy and Sanders Add Amendment to Fund DOL Employee Ownership Initiative

Senators Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) added an amendment (PDF) to S. 3333, the Emergency Savings Enhancement Act of 2025, that would dramatically increase funding for the Employee Ownership Initiative in the US Department of Labor (DOL). The initiative is part of the WORK Act, which was incorporated into the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022. The WORK Act established the Employee Ownership Initiative in the DOL to serve as a clearinghouse for information on employee ownership and, more importantly, provide funding for state employee ownership outreach and education programs. While the WORK Act authorized funds for the program, they were never appropriated. In 2025, the DOL administratively set aside $2 million for the program. 

The Cassidy-Sanders amendment would create a mandatory set-aside for six years of funding starting at $8 million in 2027 and increasing by $2 million per year over the next five years, for a total of $78 million. These funds would not need to be appropriated. Instead, they would come out of existing DOL discretionary funds. A similar additional amount is authorized by the amendment but would require an appropriation. Under the program, states can apply to the DOL for funding. If a state does not apply, a nonprofit employee ownership organization can.

S. 3333 amends a program created in the SECURE 2.0 Act, the pension-linked emergency savings accounts (PLESAs). Under this program, employees can put up to 3% of post-tax pay into a special savings account with their employer that operates alongside conventional retirement plans. Participants can opt out or withdraw money for the account at any time. The yearly employee contribution limit was set at $2,500 in the statute and is indexed yearly for inflation; it is $2,600 as of 2026. (Employers can make matching contributions, but they are allocated to the retirement savings portion of the plan, not the PLESA itself.) S. 3333 would increase this limit to $5,000.

The bill is bipartisan. It has been reported out of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee by a vote of 17-3. H.R. 6417 is the House counterpart. It was referred to committee in 2025, but no further action has been taken.