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CRS – U.S. Household Savings for Retirement in 2010

U.S. Household Savings for Retirement in 2010, John J. Topoleski, Analyst in Income Security, April 30, 2013

  • “Whether households have sufficient savings from which to ensure adequate income throughout retirement is a concern of households and, therefore, policymakers. The retirement income landscape has been changing over the past few decades. Although most households are eligible to receive Social Security benefits in retirement, over the past 30 years, the types of non-Social Security sources of retirement income have been changing. About half of the U.S. workforce is covered by an employer-sponsored pension plan. An increasing number of employers offer defined contributions (DC) pension plans (i.e., tax-advantaged accounts in which employee, and sometimes employer, contributions accrue investment returns) in lieu of traditional defined benefit (DB) pension plans (i.e., monthly payments to a retiree by a former employer). This shift in the nature of employer-sponsored pensions places more responsibility on workers to financially prepare for their own retirement. Households also save for retirement using Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs), into which contributions, up to a specified limit, are tax-deductible for individuals without an employer-sponsored pension or who have an employer-sponsored pension and who earn less than specified limits.”
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