Congress and the states are expected to push for part-time worker pensions, a pension industry official said Sunday.

“More people are working permanent part-time and have got to have savings plans,” Brian Graff, executive director of the American Society of Pension Professionals & Actuaries (Asppa), said at the association’s annual convention in suburban Washington, DC.

Graff said he has heard a lot of talk from state legislators about options, including having part-time employees enroll in a state-sponsored plan if their companies don’t allow them to participate in their pension offerings for full-time staff.

If Congress doesn’t extend the debt ceiling past the new deadline of February 7, a default could reduce the value of retail portfolios by 20 percent, he warned.

This includes a lower value of corporate and government debt held by consumers because interest rates would rise, he noted.

“It might not be possible to recover the value lost anytime soon,” Graff said.