Alternative Measures of Replacement Rates

This study finds that on average those just past the usual retirement age are adequately prepared for retirement in that they will be able to follow a path of consumption that begins at their current level of consumption and then follows an age-pattern similar to that of current retirees. That pattern is similar to what would be found from a theoretically derived and estimated life-cycle model. Thus we do not find inadequate preparation for retirement on average or even at the median. This is not true, however, for all groups in the population. In particular, singles lacking a high school education are likely to be forced to reduce consumption: some 62% would have died with negative wealth had they followed the consumption path given by our data. Future research will show the extent to which this percentage is over-estimated because we did not account for differential mortality. Authors’ Acknowledgements The research reported herein was pursuant to a grant from the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) funded as part of the Retirement Research Consortium (RRC). The findings and conclusions expressed are solely those of the authors and do not represent the views of SSA, any agency of the Federal Government or the RRC. We gratefully acknowledge research support from the Social Security Administration via the Michigan Retirement Research Center (UM06-03) and from the Department of Labor (J9-P-2-0033), as well as additional support for data work from the National Institute on Aging (1P01AG08291). We thank Joanna Wedell for excellent programming assistance.