The official poverty measure in the United States fails to reflect modern day economic resources and spending needs. The official measure is based only on cash income and does not include in-kind transfers, capital gains and losses, taxes, out-of-pocket health spending, the value of...

This study uses the Health and Retirement Study to deepen our understanding of nonworking adults ages 51 to 61 and how they support themselves before qualifying for Social Security benefits. The results show that nonworking adults ages 51 to 61 are a heterogeneous group. A large share is poor,...

Americans’ indebtedness has increased dramatically since the 1980s – a trend likely to have important implications for retirement security. This study finds that older adults with debt are 8 percentage points more likely to work and 2 percentage points less likely to receive Social Security...

The growing popularity of Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) and defined contribution (DC) pension plans, which generally provide benefits in the form of lump sum payments instead of annuities, is likely to affect spending patterns at older ages. People who enter retirement with little of...

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...

Many employers match employee contributions to 401(k) plans. However, the employer cost of continuing this practice may increase rapidly as trends towards automatic enrollment boost employee participation. This paper examines the relationship between employer matching behavior and automatic...

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...

The booms and busts of the late 1990s and 2000s have taken 401(k) plan participants on a rollercoaster ride. Using data from administrative tax records and household surveys, this paper examines how participants responded to these periods of economic expansions and contractions by documenting...

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...

Most studies of retirement well-being have focused on outcomes for relatively young retirees. Few studies have considered how retirement security changes as older Americans age. Following older adults from age 67 (when most have stopped working) to age 80, this study uses projections of wealth...