This paper assesses the current status of Americans’ savings for retirement by examining the incidence of individual account plans among families, as well as the average amount of assets accumulated in these accounts. The 2007 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), the Federal Reserve Board’s...

This paper focuses on the decisions that workers at job change make on receipt of a lump-sum payment from an employment-based retirement plan: whether to roll the account balance over to another tax-qualified savings vehicle, spend the assets, or invest/save the assets in another manner. The...

Target-date funds (also called quot;life-cycle fundsquot;) are a type of mutual fund that automatically rebalances its asset allocation following a predetermined pattern over time. They typically rebalance to more conservative and income-producing assets as the participant's target date of...

Over the past two decades, 401(k) plans have grown to be the most widespread private-sector employer-sponsored retirement plan in the United States, and now serve as the most popular defined contribution (DC) plan, representing the largest number of participants and assets. In 2007, 48.5 million...

This paper examines the level of -- and trends in -- IRA assets. In addition, it includes the most recent Internal Revenue Service (IRS) data on the distribution of assets and contributions to IRAs by IRA type, thereby permitting analysis of the assets and contribution levels of traditional...

The Annual Social and Economic Supplement to the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey (CPS) is one of the most-cited sources of income data for retirement-age Americans (typically ages 65 or older). It has also been used to provide annual estimates of employment-based retirement plan...

The Annual Social and Economic Supplement to the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey (CPS) is one of the most-cited sources of income data for retirement-age Americans. The Census Bureau redesigned the income questions starting in 2014 in response to findings that this survey has...