Can a Common Injection Help Americans Build Retirement Savings?

Researchers at Wharton are testing an unusual theory: a medication best known for weight loss may also change how people make money decisions, possibly helping them save instead of spend. A controlled study is underway to see whether an injection could succeed where years of financial advice often fall short.

The idea comes from the Wharton School, where researchers want to learn whether GLP-1 drugs can blunt the brain’s reward response enough to make impulsive purchases less tempting and long-term goals more appealing. Wharton neuroscientist and professor Michael Platt said the drugs may help people become more disciplined decision-makers through a simple injection, instead of building that habit over many years.

The question arrives at a difficult time for savers. The U.S. personal saving rate dropped to 4.4% in the second quarter of 2026, down from 5.3% in the first quarter and 6.9% in the first quarter of 2024. For people nearing retirement, each dollar saved has less time to grow, making every contribution more important.

What Wharton Is Studying and Who Is Funding It

The research focuses on the brain’s reward system, which Platt says “underlies all consumption decisions.” In one task, participants choose between a smaller reward now and a larger one later, then must carry out one of those choices. That same tension sits at the heart of retirement saving, where people must choose delayed benefits over immediate gratification. “It’s a trade-off between immediate gratification and getting something that you might know is actually of higher value, but you’d have to wait for it,” Platt told CBS News.

Funding for the study comes from Noom, the digital health company. The project grew out of earlier work by Noom CEO Geoff Cook. Because the study is still in progress, no results are available yet, and any savings effect remains only a hypothesis. In a description of the research, Platt wrote: “At the other end of the spectrum, the same shift could potentially help ordinary consumers resist impulsive spending and favor longer-term financial goals.” If the effect is confirmed, he told CBS, “maybe they’re putting more money into savings.”

Automatic Features Already Help People Save

Retirement plans already reduce the temptation to undersave through their design. In Vanguard’s How America Saves 2026, based on 2025 data, plans with automatic enrollment had a 94% participation rate, compared with 64% for voluntary enrollment plans. The difference was especially large among low earners: 80% participation under automatic enrollment for workers making less than $15,000, versus 16% under voluntary enrollment. Among workers ages 55 to 64, the rates were 95% and 76%.

Employers have responded. By the end of 2025, 61% of Vanguard plans used automatic enrollment, including 79% of plans with at least 1,000 participants. More than 70% of those plans also increased deferral rates automatically each year. Starting contribution levels have risen too: 62% of plans now begin workers at 4% or more, up from 43% in 2015. Vanguard found that when plans use a 6% default, participants across income levels have a median deferral rate of 7% or higher.

How Much Near-Retirees Are Saving

In 2025, Vanguard participants deferred 7.6% of income on average, with a median of 6.6%. Older workers saved more. The average deferral rate was 9.3% for those ages 55 to 64 and 10.1% for participants 65 and older. Those with account balances below $10,000 deferred only 4.2%.

For perspective, median weekly earnings for full-time workers were $1,251 in the second quarter of 2026, or about $65,052 a year. Saving 7.6% of that income amounts to roughly $4,944 annually. Social Security is expected to cover only part of retirement costs: after the 3.6% COLA for 2027, the estimated average retired-worker benefit is $2,170 a month.

Ways to Counter the Spending Temptation Now

• Turn on automatic increases. Many automatic enrollment plans already offer them. Because the increase happens before the paycheck reaches you, you do not have to decide to save more.
• Raise your contribution when your pay rises. Directing part of each raise into a 401(k) lets your take-home pay still grow while your savings increase.
• Use catch-up contributions. Workers 50 and older can contribute above the standard limit, which can help late starters make up ground.
• Keep contributing. Stopping contributions is exactly the kind of immediate-versus-later decision the Wharton study is designed to measure.

What to Look For When Results Arrive

The study’s findings are expected after it concludes. Three questions will matter most: whether participants taking GLP-1 drugs chose the larger, later payout more often than others, how large the effect was, and whether it held when people had to follow through on their choices. Because Noom funded the work, peer review and independent replication will also be important. For now, automatic enrollment and automatic increases remain the strategies with proven results, and Vanguard’s data show they lift both participation and contribution rates.