The recent election brought renewed focus upon largeinfrastructure projects: massive, capital-intensive effortsrequired to rebuild America’s roads, bridges, railways andairports.

Related: EBRI forum examines causes of retirementplan leakage

Desperately needed, these projects could cost taxpayers hundredsof billions, perhaps even trillions of dollars.

However, there’s another vitally-needed, national infrastructureproject that has negligible cost – but could generate trillions insavings, placed directly into the pockets of hard-workingAmericans. Finally, it can be delivered by the privatesector, at no cost to American taxpayers.

Related: Study: Here's one way to slow 401(k) planleakage

Sound too good to be true? It’s not.

Reducing cashout leakage

Retirement plan “cashout leakage” may not be a term you’refamiliar with. Characterized by the premature withdrawal ofsavings from qualified retirement plans prior to normal retirementage, cashout leakage is tragic, depriving millions of hardworkingAmericans of a comfortable or timely retirement.

The vast majority of cashout leakage occurs at job change, whenas much as 60% of qualified plan participants simply take the pathof least resistance, electing to prematurely distribute theirretirement savings.

The sad part is, most participants don’t even need the money.According to a Boston Research Technologies study on the mobileworkforce distribution decisions, only 1/3 of participants thatcashed out a retirement plan indicated they did so due to anemergency.

In 2012, the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) estimatedthat a 50% reduction in cashout leakage would add $1.3 trillion toour retirement savings, over a 10-year period.

If you’re jaded by large numbers, $1.3 trillion is:

• Greater than the gross domestic product (GDP) of all but 11 ofthe world’s economies.

• Slightly less than the GDP of South Korea ($1.4 trillion), butgreater than Russia ($1.26 trillion) and Australia ($1.25trillion).

• Roughly equal to the combined GDP of Iran, Saudi Arabia, and theUAE.

The benefits of reducing cashout leakage are impressive, butbecome truly mind-boggling as the timeline is extended over ageneration of savers. A straight-line extension of EBRI’soriginal estimates over a 40-year period increases the savings to awhopping $18.9 trillion, which is larger than the present GDP ofthe United States ($18.5 trillion)!

Implementing a cashout leakage reduction initiative

With so much retirement income at risk, one would think thatreducing cashout leakage would be a massive undertaking, but it’snot.

At least half of cashout leakage is easily-preventable throughprivate-sector programs that move retirement savings forward, asparticipants change jobs. As studies of America’smobile workforce and bestpractices have shown, cashout leakage can easily be reduced by50%, simply by making portability the easiest choice for qualifiedplan participants.

This is exactly what The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) recommended intheir recent report “Securing Our Financial Future.”

During the Bipartisan Policy Center’s discussion onJune 9, 2016 in Washington, D.C., panel participants highlightedthe Commission’s recommendation to establish a nationwideprivate-sector retirement security clearinghouse to helpparticipants seamlessly move retirement savings account balancesfrom plan to plan as they change jobs, and to consolidate multipleretirement accounts in a participant’s current-employerplan.

Taking the BPC’s lead, initiatives such as auto-portability are already makingprogress. Addressing only sub-$5,000 balances that aresubject to mandatory distributions, a discrete simulation model hasdemonstrated that auto-portability could add $115 billion toAmericans’ retirement savings over the next 40 years.

In 2017, as DC policymakers contemplate the many infrastructureinitiatives competing for scarce resources, remember that theCashout Leakage Reduction Initiative may be the most compellingproject of all.