Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

The Economic Status of the Elderly

In: Financial Aspects of the United States Pension System

Contents:

Author Info

  • Michael D. Hurd
  • John B. Shoven

Abstract

In the first part of the paper using official data sources, we estimate the real income of the elderly and of the rest of the population during the 1570s. We find that income per household of the elderly has increased more rapidly than income per household of the rest of the population, even though the elderly's fraction of income from work decreased greatly. In the rest of the paper we use the 1969 and 1975 Retirement History Surveys to estimate income, wealth and inflation vulnerability of households whose heads were ages 58 through 63 in 1969. The income data verified the results from the official data. The 1969 wealth data show that a representative person on the eve of retirement has small holdings of financial assets: most of the assets are in housing, Social Security and Medicare. Between 1969 and 1975 real wealth increased slightly on average. There was some tendency for the distribution to tighten. We found that contrary to popular opinion, on average the elderly are not especially vulnerable to a sudden increase in either prices or the rate of inflation. Most of their assets are inflation protected. The wealthy are most vulnerable to inflation.

(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://www.nber.org/chapters/c6038.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

as in new window

This chapter was published in:

  • Zvi Bodie & John B. Shoven, 1983. "Financial Aspects of the United States Pension System," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number bodi83-1, October.
    This item is provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Chapters with number 6038.

    Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberch:6038

    Contact details of provider:
    Postal: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.
    Phone: 617-868-3900
    Email:
    Web page: http://www.nber.org
    More information through EDIRC

    Related research

    Keywords:

    Other versions of this item:

    References

    References listed on IDEAS
    Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
    as in new window
    1. Benjamin A. Okner, 1975. "Individual Taxes and the Distribution of Income," NBER Chapters, in: The Personal Distribution of Income and Wealth, pages 45-74 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Michael J. Boskin & Michael D. Hurd, 1986. "Are Inflation Rates Different for the Elderly?," NBER Working Papers 0943, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as in new window

    Cited by:
    1. Stock, J.H. & Wise, D.A., 1988. "Pensions, The Option Value Of Work, And Retirement," Working Papers e-88-28, Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
    2. Michael D. Hurd & David A. Wise, 1989. "The Wealth and Poverty of Widows: Assets Before and After the Husband's Death," NBER Working Papers 2325, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Lawrence H. Summers, 1984. "Observations on the Indexation of Old Age Pensions," NBER Working Papers 1023, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Hamermesh, Daniel S, 1984. "Consumption during Retirement: The Missing Link in the Life Cycle," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 66(1), pages 1-7, February.
    5. Steven F. Venti & David A. Wise, 1987. "Have IRAs Increased U.S. Saving?: Evidence from Consumer Expenditure Surveys," NBER Working Papers 2217, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Michael J. Boskin & John B. Shoven, 1987. "Concepts and Measures of Earnings Replacement During Retirement," NBER Working Papers 1360, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Kathleen McGarry & Andrew Davenport, 1997. "Pensions and the Distribution of Wealth," NBER Working Papers 6171, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Michael J. Boskin & John B. Shoven, 1986. "Poverty Among the Elderly: Where are the Holes in the Safety Net?," NBER Working Papers 1923, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Naohiro Yashiro, 2001. "Policy implications of demographic change: panel discussion: social implications of demographic change in Japan," Conference Series ; [Proceedings], Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, pages 297-304.
    10. Michael D. Hurd, 1987. "The Marginal Value of Social Security," NBER Working Papers 2411, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    Lists

    This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberch:6038

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ().

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

    If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.