2009
How Do Pension Changes Affect Retirement Preparedness? The Trend to Defined Contribution Plans and the Vulnerability of the Retirement Age Population to the Stock Market Decline of 2008-2009
This document has two parts. The first part presents background information on trends in pensions drawn from our forthcoming book, Pensions in the Health and Retirement Study. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), trends in pensions are…
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2008
Are All Americans Saving 'Optimally' for Retirement?
There is a considerable amount of discussion in the popular media and in policyand academic writing that Americans are doing a poor job of preparing for retirement. This perception is reinforced by recent low (and sometimes negative) personal saving rates…
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Deconstructing Lifecycle Expenditure
In this paper we revisit two well-known facts regarding lifecycle expenditures. The first is the familiar “hump” shaped lifecycle profile of nondurable expenditures. The second is that cross-household consumption inequality increases steadily throughout the life cycle. We document that the…
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Marital Histories and Economic Well-Being
Family composition has changed dramatically over the past 25 years. Divorce rates rapidly increased from the late 1960’s through the 1980’s, and, although the majority of divorced individuals eventually remarry, remarriage rates have also declined. This research asks, what are…
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Adequacy of Resources in Retirement
We have found that on average those just past the usual retirement age areadequately prepared for retirement in that they will be able to follow a path ofconsumption that begins at their current level of consumption and then follows an…
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How Do Lower-Income Families Think About Retirement?
We are conducting a qualitative study of the economic survival strategies of low-income families in Detroit. In-depth, open-ended, face-to-face interviews were conducted with 52 respondents in fall/winter 2006. Interview topics include work, income, use of public programs, health insurance, and…
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The Efficiency of Pension Plan Investment Menus: Investment Choices in Defined Contribution Pension Plans
Few previous studies have explored whether defined contribution retirement saving plans offer sufficiently diversified investment menus, though it is likely that these menus significantly shape workers’ accumulations of retirement wealth. This paper assesses the efficiency and performance of 401(k) investment…
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2007
Take-up of Medicare Part D and the SSA Subsidy: Early Results from the Health and Retirement Study.
UM07-06A0807C , UM07-06
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Future Beneficiary Expectations of the Returns to Delayed Social Security Benefit Claiming and Choice Behavior.
UM07-01A0807C , UM07-01
We report on our preliminary findings from an innovative module of surveyquestions in the RAND American Life Panel designed to measure willingness to delay take-up of Social Security benefits. Among respondents who expect to stop working full time prior to…
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