High earners are far likelier to participate without a match

Participation rate among those with no employer contribution, by earnings decile

Denominator is private-sector employees who receive no employer contribution; numerator is the share of that group who still participate in a plan. Bottom-half (deciles 1–5) employees participate at 3.9 percent versus 19.9 percent for top-half (deciles 6–10) employees — about 5 times as likely. Deciles are of individual annual earnings among all workers. Decile-level bars rest on small unweighted participant counts (as few as 11 in the lowest decile); treat decile-to-decile contrasts as noisy.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Survey of Income and Program Participation, 2025 release (pooled 2022–2025 panels), December 2024 reference month; EIG analysis.