Retirement Plan Participation : Survey of Income and Program Participation (Sipp) Data

This paper presents updated results from the latest Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) data on retirement plan participation. SIPP is conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau to examine Americans' participation in various government and private-sector programs that relate to their income and well-being. These latest data are from Topical Module 7 of the 2001 Panel fielded from January-April 2003. The SIPP data have the advantage of providing relatively detailed information on the retirement plans that workers participate in, but also have the drawback of being fielded only once every five years. In comparison, the Current Population Survey, also conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, provides overall participation levels of workers on an annual basis but does not provide information on the plan types in which the workers are participating. This paper provides "top-line" results from the SIPP data on retirement plan participation. A later paper will provide more detailed breakdowns of the data for the results examined here. The overall participation by all workers and nonagricultural wage and salary workers are presented with breakdowns by age, income, and industry of the worker and the worker's employer. The next section investigates the plan type (defined benefit versus defined contribution) that retirement participants regard as their primary (most important) plan. The last section examines participation in and contributions to salary reduction plans (401(k)-type plans). The workers in this study include those from both the private and the public sectors