Ted Benna, the retirement-benefits consultant whose interpretation of an obscure tax provision helped create the modern 401(k), is seeking to address one of the system’s most enduring shortcomings with a new employer-funded savings program. The initiative, called Radish, is designed to help lower- and middle-income workers accumulate assets without having to reduce their take-home pay. Employers contribute money when workers achieve specified performance or retention goals, turning workplace incentives into balances that can grow over time.

The proposal reflects Benna’s concern that the retirement system he helped popularize has become more effective for higher earners than for workers living close to the limits of their regular paychecks. Conventional 401(k) participation generally requires an employee to redirect part of current wages into a long-term account. Even when an employer offers matching contributions, workers who cannot afford the initial payroll deduction may receive little or no benefit from the match.

Radish reverses that funding sequence. The employee is not required to make a salary-deferral contribution. Instead, the employer finances the account through performance-based rewards structured within a qualified 401(a) profit-sharing plan. A company might contribute money when a worker reports on time, completes a period without a safety incident, reaches a delivery target or remains with the business for a defined period. The program’s developers describe it as a way to align employee financial security with operational objectives.

The design is intended to complement rather than necessarily replace a 401(k). A company could continue offering a conventional retirement plan across its workforce while using Radish incentives for employees who are less likely to contribute from their own wages. Benna has said this combination could extend workplace savings to people who currently receive limited value from employee-funded plans, while preserving existing 401(k) arrangements for workers able to make regular deferrals.

Radish is being marketed primarily to employers with large hourly or frontline workforces, including trucking companies, warehouses, retailers and other businesses where attendance, safety and turnover materially affect profitability. In those sectors, performance bonuses are already common, but they are generally paid through payroll and immediately absorbed into household spending. Radish attempts to convert some incremental compensation into a visible pool of savings that employees can monitor as it accumulates.

Examples discussed by Radish executives include a contribution of $5 for each day an employee meets an attendance goal or a $1,000 annual reward for remaining with a company. In trucking, an employer might provide $20 for each week of safe driving, $150 for meeting a monthly on-time target or an additional bonus after several consecutive achievements. Employers can create multiple incentive “campaigns” linked to the metrics they want to improve.

Workers use an application to track the contributions they have earned and estimate how much they could accumulate by continuing to meet performance goals. The visual component is central to the product’s strategy. Traditional profit-sharing contributions may appear only periodically on a retirement statement, limiting their immediate motivational value. Radish seeks to make each employer-funded reward visible soon after it is earned, connecting daily workplace behavior with longer-term financial outcomes.

The account structure is based on Section 401(a) of the tax code, rather than the salary-deferral provision associated with a 401(k). Radish is aimed at employees who are not classified as highly compensated under Internal Revenue Service standards. The company’s design has referenced the 2025 highly compensated employee threshold of $160,000, though applicable thresholds and plan requirements can change over time.

Employer contributions generally bypass ordinary payroll treatment and accumulate on a tax-deferred basis within the qualified plan. Radish promotes the resulting payroll-tax advantages as one component of the employer value proposition. For employees, taxes are generally deferred until funds are distributed. Early withdrawals may be subject to ordinary income tax and, in many cases, an additional 10% penalty before age 59½, depending on the circumstances and applicable exceptions.

Those restrictions mean a Radish account is not equivalent to a standard bank savings account, despite the program’s financial-security positioning. Workers facing an emergency may be able to obtain their money, but distributions can carry tax consequences and reduce the amount ultimately available. Benna has advocated a simple investment approach, such as holding contributions in a money-market fund, rather than exposing relatively small, short-term balances to substantial market volatility.

If balances become large enough, employees may eventually roll the assets into an individual retirement account or, where permitted, another qualified workplace plan. That pathway could make Radish an entry point into the broader retirement system for workers who have never owned investment assets. It could also create future opportunities for financial advisors and digital wealth platforms when workers change jobs, consolidate accounts or begin developing more comprehensive savings strategies.

The need Radish is attempting to address is substantial. More than two-thirds of U.S. private-sector workers have access to a defined-contribution plan such as a 401(k), according to labor-market data cited in the July 28 report on Benna’s initiative, but only about half of eligible workers participate. Affordability remains a central barrier, especially when household budgets are dominated by rent, food, transportation and other immediate expenses.

By comparison, the 401(k) has become one of the largest engines of household asset accumulation in the United States. The system serves roughly 70 million workers and holds about $10 trillion, while supporting a broad ecosystem of recordkeepers, asset managers, administrators, advisors and technology companies. Market appreciation and sustained contributions have produced a growing population of large account holders, but the gains are uneven because participation and contribution rates tend to be linked to income.

Benna’s own assessment of that history is unusually critical for someone closely identified with the system’s development. He has argued that 401(k) plans have grown more complicated and expensive than the comparatively simple arrangement he installed at his benefits-consulting company in 1981. That early plan, covering approximately 50 workers, offered two investment choices and combined employee salary deferrals with employer contributions.

The structure spread rapidly after the Internal Revenue Service proposed rules supporting the approach. Over subsequent decades, defined-contribution plans surpassed traditional pensions as the dominant private-sector retirement benefit. Employers shifted investment and longevity risk toward individual workers, while employees gained portability and control over their accounts. The result generated substantial wealth for consistent savers but left limited protection for employees who could not contribute or who experienced unstable employment.

Radish originated in 2024 under the name Wheat Grain Incentive Plan, a reference to the way one planted seed can generate a larger harvest. Benna later connected with Oklahoma City entrepreneur Kyle Bagley, who had been developing CAREit, another incentive platform focused on frontline employees. Bagley and co-founder Justin Boeckman joined with Benna to form Radish, selecting a name intended to convey quick growth, accessibility and durable roots.

The venture has assembled several industry relationships to support implementation. Finch provides employment-data and payroll integrations that can connect workplace information with the Radish platform. Broadridge has been identified as an underlying software partner. In April, IRALOGIX announced that it had been selected to provide IRA services, supporting potential rollovers and other retirement-account functions as the product expands.

Radish is pursuing an advisor-centered distribution model, positioning retirement-plan specialists and benefits consultants as intermediaries between the platform and employers. That approach recognizes that a qualified plan tied to performance metrics requires more than a consumer-facing application. Employers and their advisors must determine eligibility, contribution formulas, investment arrangements, communication procedures and distribution rules while ensuring that incentives operate consistently with plan documents and employment policies.

For wealth managers, the immediate account balances may be modest, but the broader significance lies in creating an earlier point of contact with households that have historically remained outside investment markets. An employee who first accumulates several hundred or several thousand dollars through employer rewards may later become a participant in a 401(k), an IRA owner or a client seeking guidance on emergency reserves, debt management and retirement planning.

The model also fits a broader shift toward workplace financial-wellness services. Employers increasingly view financial stress as a workforce issue that can affect absenteeism, productivity and retention. Traditional education programs may have limited impact when employees lack money to save. Radish attempts to overcome that constraint by providing the initial capital directly, allowing financial-wellness messaging to begin with an actual balance rather than an instruction to reduce current consumption.

Employer adoption remains the decisive hurdle. Large insurers, retirement-plan recordkeepers, a major university and other organizations have heard presentations about Radish, but none had publicly committed to becoming a major client as of the latest report. Benna and Bagley said they were working with a private school in North Carolina and a retail operation in Oklahoma, while preparing a pilot involving roughly 200 employees at a trucking company.

Trucking is a particularly relevant testing ground because safety, delivery reliability and driver retention have clear financial consequences. Radish’s supporters argue that an employer can justify contributions when improved performance produces measurable savings or additional revenue. A visible account balance could also strengthen retention by showing employees the value of incentives they might forgo by leaving before future campaigns or rewards are completed.

There are nevertheless questions about whether workers will value deferred rewards as highly as immediate cash. Joshua Gotbaum, a Brookings Institution scholar-in-residence and former director of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., has argued that direct pay may be the clearest way to encourage desired behavior. Employees facing immediate expenses may prefer a larger paycheck even when a tax-advantaged account offers potential long-term benefits.

Alicia Munnell of Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research has raised a separate concern: employer-funded savings should not become a substitute for wage increases. Because Radish contributions are not treated as ordinary cash compensation, they may not count toward the earnings record used to calculate future Social Security benefits. Lower taxable wages over a worker’s career can result in lower benefits, creating a potential trade-off between current tax advantages and future guaranteed income.

Radish’s developers maintain that the contributions are intended to sit on top of regular wages rather than replace them. They also argue that immediate financial security can be more valuable to lower-paid employees than a marginal increase in Social Security benefits decades later. Whether that distinction holds in practice will depend on employer compensation decisions, plan disclosures and the ability of workers or their representatives to evaluate total pay packages.

The product also introduces performance-design risks. Incentive criteria must be measurable, understandable and within an employee’s reasonable control. A driver’s on-time performance, for example, can be affected by weather, traffic, equipment problems and customer delays. Poorly designed campaigns could create disputes or encourage behavior that conflicts with safety and compliance priorities. Advisors and employers will therefore need to assess not only retirement-plan administration but also the quality of the underlying employment incentives.

Radish’s commercial prospects will depend on whether it can demonstrate that employer contributions produce measurable operational returns. Businesses will likely compare the program’s implementation and administrative costs with conventional bonuses, higher wages, traditional profit sharing and existing 401(k) enhancements. Successful pilots would need to show improvements in retention or performance without generating confusion, employee dissatisfaction or unintended tax consequences.

Benna has compared the early resistance to Radish with the skepticism surrounding the first 401(k) arrangements. Employers initially questioned whether his interpretation of the tax code would be accepted and waited for others to adopt the structure. Radish now faces a similar need for validation, though it enters a far more mature and heavily serviced retirement market in which employers already have numerous benefit alternatives.

The plan’s ultimate importance may therefore be less about replacing the 401(k) than about testing a different principle of workplace wealth creation. Conventional plans reward workers who can save from current income. Radish begins with the assumption that many employees cannot, and that employers may need to supply the first dollars. If the structure gains adoption without reducing wages or other benefits, it could provide a new route into long-term asset ownership for workers whom the existing retirement system has struggled to reach.