To participate in the program, the companies must agree to launch an effort addressing emergency savings within a year and share anonymized data of results from those efforts with the initiative. In return, they gain access to the expertise BlackRock provides through partners such as Common Cents Lab, Commonwealth and Financial Health Network. A recent Capitol Hill hearing on retirement security highlighted on key hurdle to increasing long-term savings: People tend to withdraw money from their retirement accounts to pay for short-term emergencies. A 2018 Federal Reserve report found that 40% of Americans would have difficulty paying for an unexpected $400 expense. A survey released by Bankrate.com in January indicates that those cash reserves still fall short for many people, with only 39% of people able to pay for a $1,000 emergency expense out of savings.