Do Newly Retired Workers in the United States Have Sufficient Resources to Maintain Well-Being?

A current policy issue is the extent to which savings are sufficient to sustain economic well-being in retirement. We compare annuitized wealth at retirement to three preretirement consumption estimates. About one-half of new retirees have insufficient resources to enable the full maintenance of estimated preretirement consumption in retirement, and about 40% fail to meet the "0.7 of earnings" standard that is used in many studies. Using standards reflecting social (poverty) norms we find a less serious problem. About 5% (25%) of new retirees have insufficient resources to enable an above-poverty (near-poverty) level of living during retirement. (JEL J14, J26) Copyright 2006, Oxford University Press.