The Trump executive order that should have every dental practice paying attention

Search in any social platform or peer discussion group today and you will find feed after feed of employees discussing salaries and employer sponsored benefit packages. Hourly compensation rates continue to be the height of conversation, but as employees are reaching top hourly rates, added benefit comparisons are also on the rise. Gone are the days of employee handbooks that read “salary discussions are against company policy.”

People talk. As a matter of fact, that wording is strictly prohibited in most states. Just after hourly salaries and paid time off (PTO), one question shows up repeatedly: What does your office offer for retirement? The answers are all over the map. Some practices have a fully matched 401(k). Some have a SIMPLE IRA. 

A surprising number of dentists, specifically in the private-practice space, offer nothing at all. Many doctors and practice owners genuinely believe that adding a retirement plan is too expensive, too complicated, or only for big group practices and DSOs.

Those conversations may now get more interesting. On April 30, 2026, President Trump signed an executive order directing the Treasury Department to launch TrumpIRA.gov by January 1, 2027. The platform is designed to connect workers who do not have an employer-sponsored retirement plan to high-quality, low-cost private-sector IRAs, and pair them with up to $1,000 a year in federal matching funds through the Saver’s Match program created under SECURE 2.0.¹ 

If you are an office manager, a managing dental spouse, or a practice owner trying to figure out what this means for your team, and how to relay this information, here is the short version: this is good news for dentistry, and it is especially good news for the practices that have been quietly losing the benefits race.

Dentistry’s reality check

Roughly 56 million Americans currently lack access to an employer-sponsored retirement plan, according to research from the Pew Charitable Trusts.² Many of those workers sit in the operatory and at the front desk of small dental practices.

Most dental offices in this country would be considered small businesses. According to AARP, an estimated 78% of businesses with fewer than 10 employees do not offer a retirement plan.³ Anyone who has worked in a solo or two-doctor practice or partnership knows why. Setting up a 401(k) feels overwhelming. SIMPLE IRAs require employer contributions. The doctor is already paying for malpractice, payroll, lab fees, and a software subscription that seems to raise its rate every January. “We will look at it next year” becomes the standing answer. 

Meanwhile, the team is paying attention. Dental hygienists, assistants, and administrators are comparing offers. Job postings list 401(k) match alongside CE allowance and uniform reimbursement. When a candidate decides between two offers, the practice without a retirement benefit is often the one that loses when the hourly wage is identical.

What the executive order actually does

The order does not create a new government-run retirement plan. It is more like a federally curated marketplace, similar in spirit to how patients use a benefits portal to compare insurance plans. The Treasury will host the site. Private financial institutions will offer the IRAs that appear on it.⁴

To make the cut, those IRAs must:

• Charge an overall annual expense ratio of no more than 0.15% of the account balance

• Have no minimum-contribution or minimum-balance requirements

• Meet objective standards for transparency and fiduciary responsibility

• Be portable from job to job

 On top of the IRA itself, eligible workers can receive the federal Saver's Match, an added benefit of up to $1,000 per year deposited directly into the account. The full $1,000 match goes to single filers earning $20,500 or less, head-of-household filers earning $30,750 or less, and married couples filing jointly earning $41,000 or less. Above those thresholds, the match phases down gradually, reaching zero at $35,500 (single), $53,250 (head of household), and $71,000 (joint).⁵ The match was created by SECURE 2.0 in 2022 and goes live for the 2027 tax year.

In plain language: a single-mom front-desk coordinator earning $30,000 a year and filing as head of household puts $2,000 of her own money into a TrumpIRA.gov-listed account in 2027 and ends the year with $3,000 in that account. That is her $2,000 contribution plus the full $1,000 federal match. For a team member who has spent years watching retirement benefits flow to others, that is real money. 

Why this is great for dental practices

It is tempting to read this as something that only matters for the employee, but practice owners who think that way will miss the bigger picture. 

First, the executive order takes pressure off the practice that genuinely cannot afford a 401(k) plan right now. Think about start-ups. Employee knowledge and skill matter for rapid growth and those people want more benefits. For years, owners who could not justify the cost of plan administration had no alternative to offer. Now there is one. A doctor can sit down with a team member and say: “We are not able to launch a 401(k) yet, but here is a federal resource that gives you access to a low-cost IRA and a possible $1,000 match. Let me help you set it up.” That is a far better conversation than “We just don’t offer that.”

Second, it gives practices a low-friction way to add a payroll-deducted contribution. Jere El-Bakri, chief retirement officer at Vensure Employer Solutions, told the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) the new initiative “should significantly increase the number of worksite plans and/or participation in IRAs” and predicts a “demand-side push” from employees asking for payroll-deducted contributions so they can capture the match.⁶ That demand is coming. Practices that get out in front of it look thoughtful. Practices that ignore it look behind.

Third, it strengthens recruitment and retention. Anyone who has tried to hire a dental assistant or hygienist in the last three years knows the labor market has not gotten easier. A practice that can credibly say they help their team build retirement security, even if it is not a 401(k) yet, has an edge over the practice down the street that says nothing at all.

Fourth, it is a stepping-stone. Many practice owners have told me they would eventually like to offer a real plan but feel paralyzed by the leap. TrumpIRA.gov is a soft on-ramp. Once a team is contributing through payroll deduction to a private-sector IRA, the cultural and operational shift to a SIMPLE IRA or a 401(k) profit-sharing plan in two or three years is much smaller.

What practice leaders can do now

The platform does not go live until January 1, 2027, and the Saver’s Match begins with the 2027 tax year. That gives every practice roughly a year to prepare. Here is what I would put on the manager’s checklist:

Have a conversation with the doctor/owner. Print the executive order summary, attach the SHRM article, and put fifteen minutes on the calendar. Frame it as a benefits-and-recruiting conversation, not a financial one.

Audit the current benefits package. If the practice already offers a SIMPLE IRA or 401(k), this order does not replace it. Team members who are eligible for the Saver’s Match through their existing plan can already capture it. Make sure you understand which team members would benefit from the existing plan versus a TrumpIRA option. 

Talk to your payroll provider. Ask whether they can set up post-tax payroll deductions for an employee’s personal IRA in advance of the January 2027 launch. Most can. Establishing guidelines now means the practice is ready when employees start asking.

Update job postings and the new-hire packet. Once the program is live, even practices that do not offer a 401(k) can list “assistance enrolling in a federally vetted IRA, with potential $1,000 federal match” as a benefit. That language belongs in the recruitment toolkit.

Plan a team education session for late 2026

The Saver’s Match has very specific income thresholds, and several team members in any given practice will not realize they qualify. A short lunch-and-learn with a financial advisor (many will do these for free as a community-education touchpoint) costs the practice almost nothing and signals that leadership cares.

The bottom line

As with anything new, the user experience of TrumpIRA.gov in January 2027 is unknown. The platform may be excellent. It may be clunky for the first year. Practices should not promise their teams a perfect tool; they should promise to walk through it together. 

Dental practices that have struggled to offer retirement benefits now have a meaningful, low-cost lever to pull. Dental team members who have spent years watching friends in larger employers build a 401(k) balance now have a path of their own. And owners who have wanted to do right by their teams, but have always felt boxed in by cost, finally have an answer that does not require setting up a plan from scratch.

This order doesn’t solve the retirement crisis on its own, but it gives small and independent dental practices a credible, affordable answer the next time a team member asks the retirement question.

References 

1. Promoting retirement-savings access for American workers by establishing TrumpIRA.gov. The White House. April 30, 2026.  https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/04/promoting-retirement-savings-access-for-american-workers-by-establishing-trumpira-gov/

2. Workers without access to retirement benefits struggle to build wealth. Pew Charitable Trusts. June 25, 2025. https://www.pew.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2025/06/workers-without-access-to-retirement-benefits-struggle-to-build-wealth

3. John D, Rao M, Koenig G. Payroll deduction retirement programs build economic security. AARP Public Policy Institute. December 12, 2024. https://www.aarp.org/pri/topics/work-finances-retirement/financial-security-retirement/national-coverage/ 

4. Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump expands retirement-savings access for American workers by establishing TrumpIRA.gov. The White House. April 30, 2026. 

5. Federal saver's match could benefit millions of low- to moderate-income Americans.Pew Charitable Trusts. April 2024. https://www.pew.org/en/research-and-analysis/fact-sheets/2024/04/federal-savers-match-could-benefit-millions-of-low-to-moderate-income-americans 

6. Mayer K. President Trump signs executive order expanding workers’ retirement access. SHRM. May 1, 2026.  https://www.shrm.org/topics-tools/news/benefits-compensation/trump-executive-order-expanding-workers-retirement-access