If you are an employer, do your staff a favor and default them all into an automatic-escalation plan.

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Mr. SERGEI IVANOV (Defense Minister, Russia): (Through translator) As far as our exercises are concerned, we always have a plan ready for the possible escalation of the situation in the region.

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Indeed, it is not much of a stretch to suggest that these rules are the reason we have seen the widespread adoption over the years of employer matching contributions, automatic enrollment, automatic escalation of contributions, and numerous other innovations in the retirement plan space that have been shown to increase saving.

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Know your plan: Some employer 401(k) plans have an auto escalation feature that bumps that percentage up by one or two percentage points annually, but some set limits on what percentage of your salary you can defer, ranging from 6% to 15%.

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In response, nearly one-quarter of employers plan to make changes to their automatic feature in 2012, including an automatic contribution escalation feature and increasing the initial default rate.

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