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Two 401(k)s, Two Matches: Are You Getting Every Dollar?

Are you and your spouse leaving money on the table?

Rebecca Burchill, ChFC, CLU  |  Senior Financial Advisor & Managing Director  |  Personal Financial Services

For most working couples, an employer 401(k) match is the closest thing to free money in their financial lives. Yet new research shows that many households quietly give some of it away every year, without ever realizing it.

A 2025 study published in the American Economic Review, titled “Efficiency in Household Decision-Making: Evidence from the Retirement Savings of US Couples,” linked tax records, W‑2s, and employer plan filings for roughly 185,000 married couples. The finding: nearly one in five couples don’t allocate their retirement contributions in the way that captures the most match. On average, those couples leave about $757 a year on the table. At the higher end, the cost approaches $2,000 a year.

That may not sound like a fortune in any single year, but it compounds. The researchers estimate that failing to coordinate can shrink a couple’s retirement savings by around $14,000 by age 65, and by more than $40,000 for couples leaving the most behind.

The fix is simpler than the problem

Here’s the key idea. Spouses often have different match schedules at work. One employer might match dollar-for-dollar up to 3% of pay, while the other matches 50 cents on the dollar up to 6%. When that’s the case, the couple captures more by fully funding the more generous match first, before adding to the less generous account. Same total savings, more employer money. No change to the household budget is required.

What’s striking is why couples miss this. It isn’t laziness or confusion about the rules. In many cases, they simply never thought of their two accounts as one shared pool to optimize together. Some hesitate out of a sense that “my account is mine.” Worth knowing: in most U.S. states, retirement savings built during a marriage are typically subject to division in a divorce, regardless of whose name is on the account.

Where we come in

This is exactly the kind of detail that’s easy to overlook on your own and easy to fix with a second set of eyes. When we work with married clients, coordinating contributions across both plans is a routine part of the conversation, because small adjustments like this one add up over a career.

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