This paper describes contributions to employer-sponsored retirement accounts, using newly available longitudinal data that combine administrative earnings records with survey data. The results reveal a fair amount of individual variability in contribution rates over time. However, potential...

This study uses DYNASIM3, the Urban Institute’s dynamic microsimulation model, to examine the long-run effects of the Great Recession on the future retirement incomes of working-age individuals in 2008. It compares a baseline scenario that incorporates the historic and projected effects of...

The share of workers who participate in employer-sponsored tax-deferred plans has been growing, but is still only a minority of workers. Most workers do not contribute the maximum amount allowed by law to employer-sponsored plans. Maximum contributors are more prevalent among high-income...

Economists frequently assume that employees "pay for" employer-provided fringe benefits, such as contributions to retirement plans, in the form of reduced wages. Because low-income employees receive little tax benefit from saving in qualified retirement plans, however, and may prefer immediate...

The inclusion of employer-sponsored health insurance (ESI) in taxable income would increase income and payroll tax receipts, but would also increase Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) benefits by adding ESI to the OASDI earnings base. This study uses the Urban Institute’s...

401(k) plans – the main retirement savings vehicle for millions of workers – allow participants to save on a tax-deferred basis. This tax incentive is more valu­able to workers in high-income families than work­ers in low-income families because they face higher marginal income tax rates....

The long-term shift in coverage from defined benefit (DB) pensions to defined contribution (DC) plans may accelerate rapidly as more large companies freeze their DB pensions and replace them with new or enhanced DC plans. This paper uses the Model of Income in the Near Term to simulate the...

This paper simulates the impact of the 2008 stock market crash on future retirement savings under alternative scenarios. If stocks remain depressed as after the 1974 crash, 20 percent of pre-boomers born 1941-45 and 22 percent of late boomers born 1961-65 would see their retirement incomes drop...

Some Social Security reforms would provide guarantees that individuals would not receive less under a reformed system than would be provided by current law. However, the “current law” benefit formula increases benefits when wages rise. Any reform successfully adding to economic growth,...

Income tax provisions affect the buildup of retirement assets during workers’ careers and after-tax income following retirement. This paper uses the Urban Institute’s DYNASIM model to simulate how potential changes in the tax treatment of retirement saving, Social Security benefits, and...