How do Immigrants Fare in Retirement

The extensive literature documenting differences in wages between immigrants and US-born workers suggests immigrant households may enter retirement at a significant financial disadvantage relative to households headed by the native-born. However, little work has examined differences in retirement resources and retirement security between immigrant and native households. In this paper, we use data from the Health and Retirement Study, linked with restricted data from the Social Security Administration, to compare retirement resources between immigrant and native-born households. Our results suggest that while immigrants have lower levels of Social Security benefits than natives, they have higher levels of private net worth after controlling for education, age, race, and ethnicity. The estimated immigrant differentials vary a great deal by years in the US, with the most recent immigrants the least prepared for retirement.