More than $1 billion in retirement money is currently unclaimed, and state financial officials are urging President Donald Trump to reform the way the government deals with this lost cash, according to North Dakota Treasurer Tom Beadle in a conversation with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Beadle was part of a group of financial officers from 18 states who are advocating for a greater role for state unclaimed-property programs in reconnecting retirement benefits to individuals who either can’t be located or fail to cash the checks from their retirement funds. They believe that states are more capable of finding these individuals compared to the present system, which often leaves retirement funds in limbo at financial institutions for long periods.
“We’re talking about over a billion dollars in uncashed retirement checks that are sitting out there,” Beadle expressed to the DCNF. “And that figure is increasing by around $100 million each year.”
This issue often arises when retirees move or change their addresses, leading to a loss of contact with the retirement plan administrators. When a retirement plan issues a check to an outdated address, and the recipient doesn’t receive or cash it, that money can remain unclaimed.
The Department of Labor officially acknowledges that retirement plans can lose touch with participants due to outdated addresses and incomplete records. Since 2017, the Department has recovered over $7 billion in retirement benefits meant for missing individuals.
“What we’re discussing is money that’s already been distributed,” Beadle explained. “The check’s been issued; it just hasn’t been cashed.”
In January 2025, the Department of Labor introduced a policy permitting retirement-plan fiduciaries, under certain circumstances, to transfer benefits of $1,000 or less to state unclaimed-property funds when they are unable to locate the individuals owed the funds.
This guidance mandates that participating state programs maintain searchable databases, allow electronic claims, pursue updated addresses, and safeguard the funds for rightful owners without deducting fees.
Beadle noted that this $1,000 cap means only a small fraction of missing retirement checks are addressed by this policy, estimating that roughly 28% of unclaimed funds fall under that threshold.
“Essentially, what we’re advocating for is to remove that $1,000 limit,” he told the DCNF.
State officials argue they already have systems designed to help Americans reclaim forgotten funds. For instance, during the 2023-2025 biennium, North Dakota’s Unclaimed Property Division returned over $23 million through approximately 43,653 claims.
This division is involved in the States’ Unclaimed Retirement Clearing House, a cooperative effort that includes state treasurers, unclaimed-property administrators, and the Department of Labor to streamline the collection of unclaimed retirement checks from the private sector, as highlighted in the state’s biennial report.
Moreover, North Dakota has taken additional steps to return other types of unclaimed funds proactively. Legislation passed by the state legislature enables the Department of Trust Lands’ Unclaimed Property Division to automatically return straightforward property values of up to $1,000 after verifying the owner’s identity and current address.
This means qualifying residents may receive their money by mail without having to file any claims first.
Administered by the Department of Trust Lands rather than Beadle’s office, North Dakota’s unclaimed-property program is overseen by Land Commissioner Joseph Heringer, who acts as the state’s unclaimed-property administrator.
The situation might become increasingly urgent as millions of older Americans retire and start accessing their workplace retirement accounts. The Department of Labor has pointed out that individuals who reach the normal retirement age or the required-minimum distribution age without claiming benefits might signal problems for retirement plans trying to track down missing participants.
Federal regulators have been grappling with this issue for years. A Labor Department advisory council explored the idea of transferring uncashed retirement checks to state programs in 2019 and found that state unclaimed-property funds have characteristics that could better assist in reuniting missing participants with their retirement savings.
Additionally, the Labor Department rolled out a federal Retirement Savings Lost and Found database following the enactment of the SECURE 2.0 Act, acknowledging that missing participants may forfeit benefits they have earned while retirement plans expend resources in attempts to locate them.
Beadle and the other state officials are looking for the Trump administration to enhance these initiatives by positioning state programs as a primary channel for unclaimed retirement payments and enlarging the amount that can be transferred.
For Beadle, this proposal isn’t so much about instituting a new government program but rather about leveraging existing state systems to effectively return current funds to retirees. “This is their money,” Beadle affirmed. “We just want to help them get it back.”
