facts and nonpartisan perspectives on the issues

Retirement Security

With nearly $6 trillion in retirement savings invested in the stock market, many voters are worried about volatility on Wall Street cutting into their pensions. Adding to the anxiety are rising health care costs, concerns about Social Security solvency, and the erosion of traditional pension and retiree health care plans from employers. With candidates on the campaign trail focused on the economy, securing retirement incomes should be a part of the conversation.

The Urban Institute’s Income and Benefits Policy Center is home to leading experts on retirement policy who can offer timely analyses, perspectives, and potential solutions for economic security in retirement.

KEY FACTS

• Within 50 years, the population age 65 and older will more than double to about 87 million.
• As people live longer, their retirement savings must last longer. About a third of women turning 65 in 2011—the oldest boomers—will live to 90.
• People born before 1938 can receive full Social Security benefits at age 65, but those born after 1959 must wait until 67 to collect full benefits. Collecting early at 62 will mean a 30 percent cut in benefits.
• Only 51 percent of private-sector workers are covered by employer-sponsored pensions.
• Between 1980 and 2007, traditional pension plan coverage fell from 39 to 20 percent. Plans like 401(k)s, which place all of the investment risk on employees, increased from 8 to 31 percent.
• Only 16 percent of private-sector workers had access to retiree health benefits from their employers in 2003, down from 27 percent in 1997.
• On average, regardless of when you retire, working an additional year increases annual retirement income by about 9 percent. Working an additional five years boosts annual retirement income by about 56 percent.
• The next president and Congress can help protect Americans’ retirement incomes by promoting savings and by revising policies that encourage early retirement, such as Medicare's secondary payer rules, payroll taxes for older workers, and the Social Security retirement earnings test

Additional analysis is available in UI reports:

• Employment-Sponsored Pensions: A Primer. Brendan Cushing Daniels and Richard W. Johnson
• Should People Work Longer, and Will They? Richard W. Johnson
• Employment and That Magical Year, 2008. C. Eugene Steuerle
• The Impact of Late-Career Health and Employment Shocks on Social Security and Other Wealth. Richard W. Johnson, Gordon Mermin, and Dan Murphy

Decision Points '08 is published weekly by the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan social and economic research organization.
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