The National Retirement Risk Index (NRRI) measures the percentage of working-age households who are ‘at risk’ of being financially unprepared for retirement today and in coming decades. The calculations show that even if households work to age 65 and annuitize all their financial assets,...

The National Retirement Risk Index has shown that even if households work to age 65 and annuitize all their financial assets, including the receipts from reverse mortgages on their homes, 44 percent will be ‘at risk’ of being unable to maintain their standard of living in retirement. More...

The National Retirement Risk Index has shown that even if households work to age 65 and annuitize all their financial assets, including the receipts from reverse mortgages on their homes, 44 percent will be 'at risk' of being unable to maintain their standard of living in retirement. More...

What is the impact of the shift from defined benefit to defined contribution plans on the pension wealth of households approaching retirement? Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, this brief documents this shift and compares employer-sponsored pension wealth across households with...

Most married men claim Social Security benefits at age 62 or 63, well short of both Social Security’s Full Retirement Age and the age that maximizes the household’s expected present value of benefits (EPVB). This results in a loss of less than 4 percent in household EPBV. But essentially the...

The ability to retire at an age and in a manner of one’s choosing depends on one’s ability to retain or find employment at older ages, which depends in turn on local labor market conditions. We investigate how local labor markets affect retirement transitions. We match households from the...

The release of the Federal Reserve’s 2013 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) is a great opportunity to reassess Americans’ retirement preparedness as mea­sured by the National Retirement Risk Index (NRRI). The NRRI shows the share of working-age house­holds who are “at risk” of being...

This paper summarizes what is known about leakages from existing studies and relates these results to detailed data on leakages in 2013 provided by Vanguard’s How America Saves. It then uses two data sets – the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) and the Survey of Income and Program...

The brief’s key findings are: *Federal Reserve data show that retirement preparedness has been declining over time, but studies on the level of preparedness offer conflicting assessments. *The National Retirement Risk Index (NRRI) finds half of households are “at risk,” while studies of...

The brief’s key findings are: *As 401(k)s and IRAs have become the dominant source of retirement saving, the potential for pre-retirement withdrawals – “leakages” – has grown. *Leakages occur via three channels: 1) in-service withdrawals for hardships or after age 59½; 2) cashouts...