The brief’s key findings are: The COVID recession brought the economy to a halt, but households got robust government support and asset markets soared during 2020-2021. Overall, balance sheets showed some improvements during this period: high-wealth households saw rapid asset growth from the booming markets; and those in the middle got market gains and a boost from…
Measures of retirement preparedness often suggest that a substantial share of U.S. households are not on track to maintain their standard of living in retirement. And many retirees report regret for not saving enough. Yet, when asked about their life satisfaction, the overwhelming majority – 92 percent – of retired households say…
After nearly a century of decline, work activity among older men stabilized in the 1980s and since the early 1990s the average retirement age has increased by about three years. The question is whether the factors that led to the increase over the last 30 years – changes to Social Security, retirement plans…
The graphic below (Figure 1) of the oldest societies in the world – from Visual Capitalist – is both striking and somewhat...
Raucous debate clarified the national defense case for strategic tariffs, but it is very hard to argue for a world-wide...
FEATURED
CLOSING THE COVERAGE GAP
By Andrew G. Biggs, Alicia H. Munnell and Anqi Chen
The brief’s key findings are: 401(k)s/IRAs have the potential to provide significant wealth. But a typical 60-year-old with a 401(k) in 2016 had less than $100,000 compared to a potential $360,000 in combined 401(k)/IRA assets. Four factors could explain this gap: the immaturity of the 401(k) system, the lack of universal coverage, leakages, and fees…
Associate Director of State & Local Research
Associate Director of Retirement Plans and Finance Jean-Pierre Aubry is associate director of retirement plans and finance at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. He oversees and conducts research and data collection, develops new analytic techniques for evaluating retirement plans, and secures funding support. Aubry is recognized as a leading expert on stat…
By Kim Blanton
With so many Americans in the dark about how to prepare for retirement, educating them about why it’s critical to save seems an obvious way to tackle this problem. But very few solid studies prove that financial education actually works. This field research should be counted as a positive result for a modest, low-cost financia…
The next Retirement and Disability Research Consortium Meeting will be held virtually on August 3-4, 2023. This free and public event showcases the latest in retirement and disability research from the nation’s top scholars.
CRR IN THE NEWS
DESERET NEWS
Despite Trump’s assurances that Social Security is safe, senior Americans are increasingly afraid. System outages aren’t helping reassure them
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Young savers are flocking to Roth IRAs. They are taking the advice of parents, workplace financial coaches and tax advisers, who have long preached the gospel of these accounts to save for retirement and even big purchases.