If you’re one of an estimated 75 million workers who don’t have a retirement savings plan at work, the White House wants to help you out.

The plan, which President Barack Obama has proposed in his 2010 budget, would automatically enroll workers in Individual Retirement Accounts, giving them a convenient way to save for old age.

Employers who didn’t already provide a retirement plan would be required to enroll their employees in these auto-IRAs, as they’re called. According to the White House, half of all workers—about 75 million people—lack access to employer-based retirement savings plans such as 401(k)s.

The president’s plan, expected to help low- and middle-income workers in particular, offers a tax credit to employers as an incentive to set up and maintain automatic enrollment. A tax credit would also go to households earning less than $65,000 a year that save in a retirement plan.

The key to the plan’s success is automatic enrollment. Although employees would be able to opt out, the hope is that participation would dramatically increase because money would be withdrawn from paychecks automatically. A 2003 study by the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School showed that participation in 401(k)s jumped from 13 percent to 80 percent by making it automatic with an opt-out option, rather than requiring employees to open their own plan.

The plan also would be a step toward tackling America’s retirement savings crisis. Over the last quarter-century, the burden of saving for retirement has fallen almost exclusively to workers as traditional employer-provided pension plans, which guaranteed a steady stream of retirement income, gave way to defined contribution plans such as 401(k)s. As workers now know, those plans are proving to be less than adequate.

In the last year or two, defined contribution funds tied to the stock market have suffered steep losses, costing millions of investors as much as half their retirement savings. Now those approaching their retirement years may not be able to retire as planned; others might be at risk of outliving their savings because they have less time than younger workers to recover losses.

The proposal would require legislation similar to a measure introduced in 2007, which called for employers in business for at least two years, and with 11 or more workers, to allow payroll deductions up to 3 percent to be direct-deposited in IRAs. That could dramatically raise the savings participation rate to about 80 percent for workers in lower-paid jobs—who often live in areas with few banks—and for midlevel wage earners, according to the budget outline.

“For years people have not been saving enough for retirement,” says Mark Iwry, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a think tank, and a principal of the Retirement Security Project, which focuses on boosting Americans’ retirement savings. “This proposal would make it much easier and more convenient for people who don’t have access to an employer-sponsored plan to save in an IRA.”

The future of 401(k)s, the once-promised route to a secure retirement, is now the subject of a planned series of hearings before the House Committee on Education and Labor. The plans’ poor performance has also sparked a public outcry for alternatives to such retirement vehicles.

Auto-IRAs may be one such alternative. Iwry says they can be set up to invest in a limited amount of funds that are generally more conservative. Two investment options might be a principal preservation fund and U.S. Treasury securities.

“The experience of the 401(k) has taught us that too many options discourage people from saving and they don’t often know how to decide among them. It encourages people to engage in somewhat irrational investment strategies,” he says. With auto-IRAs, “they can have U.S. Treasuries as a [relatively] safe investment and they’d still be accumulating a nest egg for the future without a risk of loss.”

Auto-IRAs are also portable, so employees can roll them into 401(k) plans and then back into an IRA if they change jobs. But there are shortcomings. People age 50 and over can only put a maximum $6,000 a year in an IRA for 2009; $5,000 is the maximum for those under 50. That’s far less than the maximum $22,000 that people age 50 and older can sock away in 401(k) plans, and $16,500 for those under 50.

Some worry, however, that the auto-IRAs will prove a burden for small businesses, says Bill Rys, tax counsel for the National Federation of Independent Business in Washington, which represents 350,000 small-business owners. “A lot of business owners run on a fairly tight budget and cash flow is always an issue, especially now when they’re making tough choices about keeping people on the payroll and even keeping their doors open. Adding another requirement is often a worry.”

But Jean Setzfand, director of financial security for AARP, says the cost to small-business owners would be minimal because no matching contribution to an IRA is required and there’s no fiduciary responsibility. She says automatic enrollment is currently made available by 40 percent of employers who provide 401(k)s.

“This is good for the employee because now there’s an easier way to save at work,” she says. “And they’ll have a better chance of keeping to the time frame they want to retire in if they save now.”

David C. John, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a think tank, and a principal at the Retirement Savings Project along with Iwry, says it’s in the country’s best interest to help workers retire comfortably so they won’t have to live on Social Security alone.

“Social Security benefits are not high enough for most people to retire on and live comfortably,” he says. “These are people who are going to have a hard time in retirement unless we can increase their opportunity for savings, and that’s where the auto-IRA comes in. This is an important move for the country.”

Carole Fleck is a senior editor at the AARP Bulletin.