Tag: retirement inequality
A forthcoming study by two of my colleagues, Wenliang Hou and Geoff Sanzenbacher, looks at retirement wealth by race. They defined wealth broadly to include assets in retirement plans (including defined benefit plans), non-retirement plan assets, housing wealth, and Social Security benefits. They used data from the Health and Retirement Study, a biannual survey that…
The brief’s key findings are: Obtaining an employer pension involves four steps: 1) having a job; 2) working for a firm with a plan; 3) being eligible for the plan; and 4) taking up the plan. For lower-income individuals, the weakest links in this chain are a lack of employment and employment with firms that…
