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The National Retirement Risk Index: An Update

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  • Alicia H. Munnell
  • Anthony Webb
  • Francesca Golub-Sass

Abstract

The release of the Federal Reserve’s 2010 Survey of Consumer Finances is a great opportunity to reassess Americans’ retirement preparedness as measured by the National Retirement Risk Index (NRRI). The NRRI shows the share of working households who are “at risk” of being unable to maintain their pre-retirement standard of living in retirement. The Index compares projected replacement rates – retirement income as a percentage of pre-retirement income – for today’s working households with target rates that would allow them to maintain their living standard and calculates the percentage at risk of falling short. The NRRI was originally constructed using the Federal Reserve’s 2004 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF). The SCF is a triennial survey of a nationally representative sample of U.S. households, which collects detailed information on households’ assets, liabilities, and demographic characteristics. The 2007 SCF did not allow for a meaningful update, because stock market and housing prices plummeted right after the survey interviews were completed. Thus, the 2010 survey is the first opportunity to see how the financial crisis and ensuing recession have affected Americans’ readiness for retirement. The discussion proceeds as follows. The first section describes the nuts and bolts of constructing the NRRI and how the new SCF data were incorporated. The second section updates the NRRI using the 2010 SCF, showing that the percentage of households at risk increased by nine percentage points between the 2007 and 2010 surveys – 44 percent to 53 percent. The third section identifies the impact of various factors on the change. The final section concludes that the NRRI confirms what we already know: today’s workers face a major retirement income challenge. Even if households work to age 65 and annuitize all their financial assets, including the receipts from reverse mortgages on their homes, more than half are at risk of being unable to maintain their standard of living in retirement.

Suggested Citation

  • Alicia H. Munnell & Anthony Webb & Francesca Golub-Sass, 2012. "The National Retirement Risk Index: An Update," Issues in Brief ib2012-20, Center for Retirement Research, revised Nov 2012.
    • Handle: RePEc:crr:issbrf:ib2012-20
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    File URL: http://crr.bc.edu/briefs/the-national-retirement-risk-index-an-update/
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    Cited by:

    1. James M. Poterba, 2014. "Retirement Security in an Aging Population," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(5), pages 1-30, May.
    2. Truc Thi Mai Bui & Patrick Button & Elyce G. Picciotti, 2020. "Early Evidence on the Impact of COVID-19 and the Recession on Older Workers," NBER Working Papers 27448, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. David McCarthy, 2021. "80 will be the new 70: Old‐age mortality postponement in the United States and its likely effect on the finances of the OASI program," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 88(2), pages 381-412, June.
    4. Daniel Gray & Alberto Montagnoli & Mirko Moro, 2017. "Does education improve financial outcomes? Quasi-experimental evidence from Britain," Working Papers 2017010, The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics.
    5. James M. Poterba, 2014. "Retirement Security in an Aging Society," NBER Working Papers 19930, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Sogunro Ashim Babatunde & Adeleke Ismaila Adedeji & Ayorinde Richard Olusegun, 2019. "An assessment of adequacy of pre-retirement savings for sustainable retirement income under the Nigerian 2014 pension scheme," Journal of Economics and Management, Sciendo, vol. 35(1), pages 150-171, March.
    7. Beshears, John & Dai, Hengchen & Milkman, Katherine L. & Benartzi, Shlomo, 2021. "Using fresh starts to nudge increased retirement savings," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 72-87.
    8. McGowan, Féidhlim P. & Lunn, Peter D., 2020. "Supporting decision-making in retirement planning: Do diagrams on Pension Benefit Statements help?," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(3), pages 323-343, July.
    9. Benjamin W. Veghte, 2015. "Social Inequality, Retirement Security, and the Future of Social Security," Poverty & Public Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 7(2), pages 97-122, June.
    10. Pavlo Illiashenko, 2017. "Behavioral Finance: Household Investment and Borrowing Decisions," Visnyk of the National Bank of Ukraine, National Bank of Ukraine, issue 242, pages 28-48.
    11. Gray, Daniel & Montagnoli, Alberto & Moro, Mirko, 2021. "Does education improve financial behaviors? Quasi-experimental evidence from Britain," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 481-507.
    12. Alicia H. Munnell & Matthew S. Rutledge, 2013. "The Effects of the Great Recession on the Retirement Security of Older Workers," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 650(1), pages 124-142, November.
    13. David Love & Lucie Schmidt, 2015. "Comprehensive Wealth of Immigrants and Natives," Working Papers wp328, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.

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