Retirement Account Balances (Updated 1/10)

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Abstract

The retirement savings of American households took a big hit when the stock market crashed in 2008. Recently, however, a good portion of these losses has been reversed. This fact sheet follows trends in retirement account balances since the beginning of 2005.

Key Points

• Assets in retirement accounts (defined contribution plans and IRAs) exceeded $8.6 trillion in the third quarter of 2007. By the end of the first quarter of 2009, when the stock market bottomed out, retirement accounts had lost $2.8 trillion (33 percent) of their peak value.
• Since then, account balances have rebounded sharply. The most recent data show that retirement accounts gained roughly $1.3 trillion (23 percent) since the first quarter of 2009, ending the third quarter at around $7.1 trillion.
• Although current retirement account assets remain 17 percent below their peak value in 2007, they are above their 2005 value and near their 2006 value.

(The factsheet is available in PDF format.)

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