The National Retirement Risk Index: An Update

The brief’s key findings are:

• The National Retirement Risk Index (NRRI), based on newly released Survey of Consumer Finances data, shows that over half of households may be unable to maintain their standard of living in retirement.
• Between 2007 and 2010, the NRRI jumped by 9 percentage points due to:
  • the bursting of the housing bubble (4.5 percentage points);
  • falling interest rates (2.2 percentage points);
  • the ongoing rise in Social Security’s Full Retirement Age (1.6 percentage points); and
  • continued low stock prices (0.8 percentage points).

• The hardest hit households were those nearing retirement and those with high incomes.