Iowa Small Business Owners Support Retirement Savings Plans

Published February 02, 2026

Offering a retirement savings plan is important to small business owners in Iowa.  It helps small businesses stay competitive with larger employers and provides workers with an opportunity to improve their financial security in retirement.  But retirement savings plans can be costly and complicated, making it hard for small businesses owners in Iowa to offer such a plan to their employees.  As a result, many workers will be faced with relying on their Social Security when they retire. 

To help with this situation, AARP is supporting states in their efforts to create and implement a state retirement savings option that would enable small business owners and their employees to better prepare for retirement. These privately managed savings options would be easy for employers to set up with no costs and low risks to the employer. Iowa Saves, now being considered in the state legislature, is one such program.

This new AARP survey of 500 small business owners across the state of Iowa shows solid support (80%) for a privately managed, ready-to-go retirement savings option for small business owners that would enable them to offer workers a way to save for the future.  And most (83%) agree that state lawmakers should support a bill that makes it easier for small-business owners to access a retirement savings option for their employees.  

Methodology

AARP commissioned Alan Newman Research (ANR) to field this 2025 Iowa Small Business Owner Survey between October 30 and December 10, 2025. Interviews were conducted by cell and landline phone among 500 small-business owners or decision makers about employee benefits at companies with 5–100 additional employees. The sample is weighted by business size (i.e., number of employees), industry, and region/county according to 2023 Economic Census statistics.

For more information on this issue in Iowa, contact Paige Yontz at pyontz@aarp.org. For media inquiries, please contact Alissa Brammer at abrammer@aarp.org. For more information on this survey, contact Jennifer Sauer at jsauer@aarp.org.

Suggested Citation:

Sauer, Jennifer. Survey of Small Business Owners in Iowa on Retirement Savings. Washington, DC: AARP Research, February 2026. https://doi.org/10.26419/res.01032.001

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Detailed Findings

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