401(k) Ownership Continues to Grow, While IRA Ownership Falls

Although fewer American families are participating in a retirement plan at work, more of those with a plan are in a 401(k). At the same time, ownership of individual retirement accounts (IRAs) is falling, according to a new report by EBRI.

Analyzing the four-year period from 2007‒2010, EBRI finds that the share of American families with a member in any employment-based retirement plan from a current employer increased steadily from 38.8 percent in 1992 to 40.6 percent in 2007, before declining in 2010 to 37.9 percent.

Ownership of 401(k)-type plans among families participating in a retirement plan more than doubled from 31.6 percent in 1992 to 79.5 percent in 2007, and increased again in 2010 to 82.1 percent. But the percentage of families owning an IRA or Keogh retirement plan (for the self-employed) declined from 30.6 percent in 2007 to 28.0 percent in 2010. In addition, the percentage of families with a retirement plan from a current employer, a previous employer’s defined contribution plan, or an IRA/Keogh declined from 66.2 percent in 2007 to 63.8 percent in 2010.

As in the past, EBRI found that retirement plan assets account for a growing majority of most Americans’ financial wealth, outside the value of their home. The median (mid-point) percentage of families’ total financial assets comprised by defined contribution plan assets and/or IRA/Keogh assets (assuming the family had any) increased from 2007 to 2010, and accounted for a clear majority of these assets:

• Defined contribution plan balances accounted for 58.1 percent of families’ total financial assets in 2007, and that share grew to 61.4 percent in 2010.
• Defined contribution and/or IRA/Keogh balances increased their share as well, from 64.1 percent of total family financial assets in 2007 to 65.7 percent in 2010. Across all demographic groups, these assets account for a very large share of total financial assets for those who own these accounts.

However, the EBRI report notes that the most recent data, along with other EBRI research, indicate that many people are unlikely to afford a comfortable retirement. “Americans lost a tremendous amount of wealth between 2007 and 2010, and the percentage of families that participated in an employment-based retirement plan and/or owned an IRA decreased as well,” said Craig Copeland, EBRI senior research associated and author of the report.

However, he added, the percentage of family heads who were eligible to participate in a defined contribution plan and actually did so remained virtually unchanged during this time. Therefore, despite all the bad news that resulted from this period, one positive factor should be noted: “Those eligible to participate in a retirement plan continued to participate—which may help change the likelihood of a lower retirement standard for many Americans,” Copeland said.

The full report is published in the September 2012 EBRI Issue Brief, available at EBRI’s Web site at www.ebri.org   The press release is online here.

 

Higher Starting Point Would Significantly Increase Retirement Security “Success”

Setting a higher starting point for 401(k) contributions would make a significant difference in improving workers’ likelihood of a financially viable retirement, according to new research by EBRI.

Most private-sector employers that automatically enroll their 401(k) participants do so at a default rate of 3 percent of pay, a level consistent with the starting rate set out in the Pension Protection Act of 2006, but a rate that many financial experts say is far too low to generate sufficient assets for a comfortable retirement. Raising the default saving rate to 6 percent would significantly increase the chances for achieving retirement adequacy “success” for both low- and high-income workers, EBRI found.

Using its proprietary Retirement Security Projection Model® (RSPM), EBRI evaluated the impact of raising the default contribution rate on younger workers (with 31–40 years of simulated 401(k) eligibility) to see how many would be likely to achieve a to achieve a total income real replacement rate of 80 percent at retirement—within the typical range of replacement rates suggested by many financial consultants.

A key variable in considering the impact of auto-enrollment in 401(k) plans with automatic escalation of contributions is whether workers who change jobs continue to save at their previous (and typically higher) contribution rate, or whether they “start over” in the new job at the typical lower automatic deferral rate of 3 percent.

Jack VanDerhei

Under the EBRI modeling, more than a quarter (25.6 percent) of those in the lowest-income quartile who had previously NOT been modeled to have a financially successful retirement (under the actual default contribution rates) would be successful as a result of the increase in starting deferral rate to 6 percent of compensation. Even workers in the highest-income quartile would benefit, although not as much: Just over 18 percent who would not be successful under the actual default contribution rate would be successful due to the higher 6 percent default rate.

“This study shows that substantial increases in success rates were found for both low- and high-income employees if employers raised the default 401(k) contribution rate to 6 percent of pay,” said Jack VanDerhei, EBRI research director and author of the report.

Full results are published in the September EBRI Notes, “Increasing Default Deferral Rates in Automatic Enrollment 401(k) Plans: The Impact on Retirement Savings Success in Plans With Automatic Escalation,” available online at www.ebri.org

“Last” Chances

By Nevin Adams, EBRI

While many Americans seem to lack a definitive sense of what living in retirement will be like, how long it will last, or how much it will cost, their sense of when it will begin has been trending older.  The 2012 Retirement Confidence Survey (RCS) noted that, whereas in 1991, just 11 percent of workers expected to retire after age 65, in 2012, more than three times as many (37 percent) report they expect to wait until after age 65 to retire—and most of those indicated an expected retirement age of 70 or older.¹

Those expecting to delay retirement perhaps found solace in a recent report by the Center for Retirement Research (CRR) at Boston College which concluded that by postponing retirement until age 70, the vast majority of households (86 percent) were “…projected to be prepared for retirement.”

That sounds good – but what about the assumptions underlying that conclusion?

In 2003, the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) constructed the EBRI-ERF Retirement Security Projection Model® (RSPM)—the first nationally representative, micro-simulation model based on actual 401(k) participant behavior and a stochastic decumulation model.  And though we have explicitly recognized that many individuals were retiring at earlier ages, a retirement age of 65 was chosen for baseline results, based upon the assumption that most workers would have the flexibility to work until that age, if they so chose.

Last year we modified the RSPM to determine whether just “working a few more years after age 65” would indeed be a feasible financial solution for those determined to be “at risk.”  Unfortunately, for those counting on that as a retirement savings “solution”, the answer is not always “yes.”

Indeed, results from the EBRI modeling indicated that the lowest pre-retirement income quartile would need to defer retirement to age 84 before 90 percent of the households would have even a break-even (50‒50) chance of success.

Working longer does help, of course.  A recent EBRI Notes article titled “Is Working to Age 70 Really the Answer for Retirement Income Adequacy?²” finds that 23 percent of those who would have been at risk of running out money in retirement if they retired at age 65 would be “ready to retire” if they kept working to 70.  Better still, if those individuals are assumed not only to delay retirement, but also to keep participating in a defined contribution plan, a full third of those who would have been at risk of running short of money if they retired at age 65 would be “ready” to retire at age 70.³

What accounts for the difference in the projections?  For a household to be classified as “ready for retirement” under the CRR method, a projected replacement rate is simply compared with a benchmark rate, while the RSPM uses a fully developed stochastic decumulation process to determine whether a family will run short of money in retirement (and, if so, at what age) under each of a thousand alternative, simulated retirement paths.  Unlike the CRR model, EBRI’s RSPM model simultaneously considers the impact of longevity risk, investment risk, and the risk of potentially catastrophic health care costs (such as prolonged stays in a nursing home).⁵

Which, as it so happens, are the same things that those trying to make sure they have enough money to last through retirement—and those trying to help them do so—need to consider.

Notes

¹ see “Is Working to Age 70 Really the Answer for Retirement Income Adequacy?”

² Also from the above article, “It’s worth nothing that a significant portion of the improvement in readiness takes place in the first four years after age 65, but that tends to level off in the early 70s before picking up in the late 70s and early 80s.  Higher-income households would be in a much better situation: 90 percent of the highest-income quartile would already have a 50 percent probability of success by age 65, while those in the next-highest income quartile would need to wait until age 72 for 90 percent of their group to have a 50 percent probability. Those in the second-lowest income quartile would need to wait until age 81 before 90 percent of their group had a 50 percent probability of success. 

³ At the same time, the percentage of workers expecting to retire before age 65 has decreased from 50 percent in 1991 to 24 percent (see this EBRI analysis, online here).  A sizable proportion of retirees report each year that they retired sooner than they had planned (50 percent in 2012). Those who retire early often do so for negative reasons, such as a health problem or disability (51 percent) or company downsizing or closure (21 percent).  The 2011 RCS found that the poor economy (36 percent), lack of faith in Social Security or the government (16 percent) and a change in employment situation (15 percent) were the most frequently cited reasons for postponing retirement.

⁴. For more on how this modeling works, see “Single Best Answer.”

⁵ For an explanation of four things that are sometimes overlooked by retirement-needs projection models, see “Generation ‘Gaps,’” online here.

Work to Age 70? For Many, That Still Won’t Pay for Retirement

Contrary to some reports that working just a little bit longer—to age 70—will allow between 80 and 90 percent of households to have adequate income in retirement, new research by EBRI shows that for approximately one-third of the households between the ages of 30 and 59 in 2007 that won’t be enough.

The EBRI research, the latest in a series of detailed analysis of retirement income adequacy by the Institute, stems from projections that large numbers of Baby Boomer and Generation X workers are likely to run short of what they need to cover general expenses and uninsured health care expenses in retirement.

“It would be comforting from a public policy standpoint to assume that merely working to age 70 would be a panacea to the significant challenges of assuring retirement income adequacy, but this may be a particularly risky strategy, especially for the vulnerable group of low-income workers,” noted Jack VanDerhei, EBRI research director and author of the report.

Working longer can, however, have a positive impact. The new research, using results from EBRI’s Retirement Security Projection Model,® shows that nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of households aged 50‒59 in 2007 would be considered “ready” for retirement at age 70, compared with 52 percent of those same households if they were to retire at age 65. Moreover, the research indicates that a worker’s participation status in a defined contribution (DC) retirement plan at age 65 will be extremely important due to the multi-year consequences for additional employee and employer contributions to the plan.

Among the key reasons for the differences between EBRI’s estimates and other models is that EBRI’s research is based on data from millions of actual 401(k) participants and its model incorporates longevity risk, investment risk, and the risk of potentially catastrophic health care costs (such as prolonged stays in a nursing home).

“While workers need to make their own decisions on the correct trade-offs of saving today vs. deferring retirement, they should be able to expect that those presenting alternatives be as accurate and complete as possible, avoiding simplistic ’rules of thumb’ that may result in future retirees, through no fault of their own, coming up short,” VanDerhei observed.

The full report is published in the August 2012 EBRI Notes, “Is Working to Age 70 Really the Answer for Retirement Income Adequacy?” online at www.ebri.org

Withdrawal “Symptoms”

By Nevin Adams, EBRI

Adams

I was recently asked about the so-called 4 percent “rule.” That’s the rule of thumb(1) that many financial consultants rely on as a formula for how much money can be withdrawn from retirement savings every year (generally adjusted for inflation) without running out of money. Of course, like so many of the “assumptions” about retirement, certainly in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, that withdrawal rule of thumb has drawn additional scrutiny.(2)

At the time, my comment was that the 4 percent guideline is just that—a guideline. What’s not as clear is whether adhering to that guideline produces an income stream in retirement that will be enough to live on.

How much are people actually withdrawing from their retirement accounts? At a recent EBRI policy forum,(3) Craig Copeland, senior research associate at the Employee Benefit Research Institute, explained that the median IRA individual withdrawal rates amounted to 5.5 percent of the account balance in 2010, though he noted that those 71 or older (when required minimum distributions kick in) were much more likely to be withdrawing at a rate of 3–5 percent (in 2008, that group’s median withdrawal rate was 7.2 percent, but in 2010, it was 5.2 percent), based on the activity among the 14.85 million accounts and $1 trillion in assets contained in the EBRI IRA Database.(4) Will these drawdown rates create a problem down the road? Will these individual run short of funds in retirement?

At its core, once you stipulate certain assumptions about the length of retirement, portfolio mix/returns, and inflation, a guideline like the 4 percent “rule” is really just a mathematical exercise.

However, trying to live on the resources you actually have available in retirement is reality—and those post-retirement withdrawal decisions are generally easier to make when you’ve made good decisions pre-retirement.

Notes

(1) Certified financial planner William P. Bengen is frequently credited with the concept, based on his article “Determining Withdrawal Rates Using Historical Data,” published in the October 1994 issue of the Journal of Financial Planning.

(2) It had drawn criticism before the 2008 financial crisis as well: See “The 4% Rule—At What Price?”

(3) The agenda, presentation materials, and a recording of EBRI’s May policy forum are available online here. Dr. Copeland’s presentation is online here.

(4) The results come from 2010 data in the EBRI IRA Database,TM which had 14.85 million accounts, held by 11.1 million individuals, with $1 trillion in assets—roughly one-fifth of both owners and assets in the IRA universe.

Sums of Substance

By Nevin Adams, EBRI

An acquaintance of mine recently described to me the challenges of trying to help a family member rebalance their retirement portfolio, which at the moment was split between a 401(k), 403(b), and an IRA.

Curious, I asked him how the funds in the IRA were invested. He laughed and said, “Which one?”

The data suggest that my friend’s family member isn’t alone in that regard; the average IRA balance is about a third higher and the median (mid-point) balance almost 42 percent larger when multiple individual retirement accounts (IRAs) owned by an individual are taken into account, according to a recent Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) analysis based on its unique EBRI IRA Database.™¹

In fact, according to a recent EBRI report², in 2010 the average IRA individual balance (all accounts from the same person combined) was $91,864, while the median balance was $25,296. By comparison, the average and median account balance of all IRAs was $67,438 and $17,863, respectively. Compared with 2008, the average and median individual balances are up 32 and 26 percent, respectively.

Individual retirement accounts (IRAs) are a vital component of U.S. retirement savings, holding more than 25 percent of all retirement assets in the nation.  Moreover, a substantial portion of these IRA assets originated in other tax-qualified retirement plans, such as defined benefit plans (pensions) and 401(k) plans, and were moved to IRAs through rollovers from those plans.

Keeping up with, and managing, retirement savings accounts remains both a challenge and an opportunity for individuals, all the more so when those savings are held in multiple accounts and locations.  Similarly, an understanding and appreciation of the complete picture offers the best perspective for crafting effective retirement savings policies.

Sometimes you can’t see the forest for the trees – but, as the data suggest, it’s important to remember that the “forest” is the sum of all the trees.

Notes

¹The EBRI IRA Database™ is an ongoing project that collects data from IRA plan administrators. For year-end 2010, it contains information on 14.85 million accounts for 11.1 million unique individuals with total assets of $1.002 trillion.  A unique aspect of the EBRI IRA Database™ is the ability to link the balances of individuals with more than one account in the database, providing a more complete picture of their IRA-based retirement savings.  For more information, see Individual Retirement Account Balances, Contributions, and Rollovers, 2010: The EBRI IRA Database ^TM here.

²Individual Retirement Account Balances, Contributions, and Rollovers, 2010: The EBRI IRA Database ^TM  

Reality “Checks”

By Nevin Adams, EBRI

A recent opinion piece by Teresa Ghilarducci in the New York Times took on what she termed a “ridiculous approach to retirement,” drawn from what appears to be a series of “ad hoc” dinner conversations with friends about their “retirement plans and prospects.”

Most of the op-ed focused on the perceived shortfalls of the voluntary retirement savings system: People don’t have enough savings, don’t know how much “enough” is, make inaccurate assumptions about the length of their lives and their ability to extend their working careers, and aren’t able to find qualified help to help them make more appropriate savings decisions.   In place of the current system, which Ghilarducci maintains “will always fall short,” she proposes “a way out” via mandatory savings in addition to the current Social Security withholding.  Consider that, just three sentences into the op-ed, she posits the jaw-dropping statistic that 75 percent of Americans nearing retirement age in 2010 had less than $30,000 in their retirement accounts.

“You don’t like mandates?  Get real,” she declares.

When we looked across the EBRI database of some 2.3 million active¹ 401(k) participants at the end of 2010 who were between the ages of 56 and 65, inclusive – people who have chosen to supplement Social Security through voluntary savings – we found only about half that number (37 percent) with less than $30,000 in those accounts.  Moreover, when looking at those in that group who have more than 30 years of tenure, fewer than 13% are in that circumstance – and neither set of numbers includes retirement assets that those individuals may have accumulated in the plans of their previous employers, or that they may have rolled into Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs), as well as pensions or other savings (see Average IRA Balances a Third Higher When Multiple Accounts are Considered).

That’s not to say that the financial challenges outlined in the op-ed won’t be a reality for some. In fact, EBRI’s Retirement Security Projection Model® (RSPM) developed in 2003, updated in 2010², finds that for Early Baby Boomers (individuals born between 1948 and 1954), Late Baby Boomers (born between 1955 and 1964) and Generation Xers (born between 1965 and 1974), roughly 44 percent of the simulated lifepaths were projected to lack adequate retirement income for basic retirement expenses plus uninsured health care costs (see “Retirement Income Adequacy for Boomers and Gen Xers: Evidence from the 2012 EBRI Retirement Security Projection Model”) .

The op-ed declares that a voluntary Social Security system “would have been a disaster.”  Indeed, an objective observer might conclude that that is why Congress originally established Social Security as a mandatory system, to provide a base of income for retirees as it still does today.   With the underpinnings of that mandatory foundation of Social Security, the current voluntary system was established to allow employers and individuals to supplement that base.  In recent decades Social Security’s benefits have been “reduced” by increases in the definition of normal retirement age, and a partial taxation of benefits, despite increases in the mandatory withholding rates, in order to adjust to the realities of rising costs from changing demographics.  Even before the recent two-year partial withholding “holiday,” Congress was, and is still today, discussing additional adjustments to that mandatory system.

The voluntary system should be judged as just that, a voluntary system.  As noted above, the data makes it clear that voluntary employer-based plans are, in fact, leading to a great deal of real savings accumulated to supplement Social Security.  Many in the nation work every day to encourage those savings to be increased (see www.choosetosave.org ).

The “real” questions, certainly as one reflects on the debate over the Affordable Care Act mandate, amidst today’s political and economic turmoil, are whether the Congress and the nation will be willing – and able – to pay the price of an expanded or new retirement savings mandate, and, regardless of that outcome, how can a voluntary system be moved to higher levels of success?

Notes

¹ Active in this case is defined as anyone in the database with a positive account balance and a positive total contribution (employee plus employer) for 2010.

² The RSPM was updated for a variety of significant changes, including the impacts of defined benefit plan freezes, automatic enrollment provisions for 401(k) plans, and the recent crises in the financial and housing markets. EBRI has recently updated RSPM to account for changes in financial and real estate market conditions as well as underlying demographic changes and changes in 401(k) participant behavior since January 1, 2010.  For more information on the RSPM, check out the May 2012 EBRI Notes, “Retirement Income Adequacy for Boomers and Gen Xers: Evidence from the 2012 EBRI Retirement Security Projection Model.”

Last June EBRI CEO Dallas Salisbury participated in an “Ideas in Action with Jim Glassman” program discussion with Ghilarducci and Alex Brill from the American Enterprise Institute titled “America’s Retirement Challenge: Should We Ditch 401(k) Plans?”  You can view it online here.

“Premature” Conclusions

By Nevin Adams, EBRI

Adams

A couple of months back, my wife noticed a water spot on the ceiling of our dining room. Now, it didn’t look fresh, but considering that that ceiling was directly underneath the master bath, she had the good sense to call a plumber. Sure enough, there was a leaky gasket—and from the look of it, one that had been there for some time before we took ownership. Fortunately, the leak was small, and the damage was minimal. Even more fortunately, we took the time to have the plumber check out the other bathrooms, and found the makings of similar, future problems well before the “leakage” became serious.

Homes aren’t the only place with the potential for problems with leakage. A recent report on 401(k) loan defaults suggests that “leakage”—the money being drawn out of retirement plans prior to retirement —is a lot larger than a number of industry and government reports have indicated. In fact, the report (online here)  claims that “the leakage could be as high as $37 billion per year,” although it completes that sentence by acknowledging that the estimate depends “…on the source of the data on loans outstanding and the assumed default rate.”

The paper promotes a recommendation that ERISA be amended so that plans could choose to allow those who take out 401(k) loans to be defaulted into insurance that would repay those loans on default. It looks at a number of different sources to conclude that the available data do not really capture all the loan leakage (because some of it is obscured as part of distribution upon termination/separation from service), and that the available data do not (yet) capture the impact of the prolonged economic slowdown that is evidenced in other, non-401(k) loan trends.

Setting aside the validity of those conclusions, and the scale of their impact on the analysis, the issue of “leakage” remains a focus for many in our industry.

Late last year, an EBRI Issue Brief examined the status of 401(k) loans, noting that in the 2010 EBRI/ICI 401(k) database, 87 percent of participants in that database¹ were in plans offering loans, although as “has been the case for the 15 years that the database has tracked 401(k) plan participants, relatively few participants made use of this borrowing privilege.”

Indeed, from 1996 through 2008, on average, less than one-fifth of 401(k) participants with access to loans had loans outstanding. At year-end 2009, the percentage of participants who were offered loans with loans outstanding ticked up to 21 percent, but it remained at that level at year-end 2010 (see the full report, online here).  This hard data, by the way, measuring activity by more than 23 million 401(k) participants.

If loan levels and amounts outstanding have remained relatively constant during this period (which included the “Great Recession”), one might nonetheless wonder about the overall impact on retirement readiness.

If you define “success” as achieving an 80 percent real replacement rate from Social Security and 401(k) accumulations combined, looking at workers ages 25–29 (who will have more than 30 years of simulated eligibility for participation in a 401(k) plan), then the decrease in success resulting from the COMBINATION of cashouts, hardship withdrawals, and loans is just 6.1 percent², according to more recent EBRI research.  The impact when you add in the impact of loan defaults is less than 1 percentage point higher (approximately 7.1 percent for all four factors combined).

Looking at the overall impact another way, more than three-fifths of those in the lowest-income quartile³ with more than 30 years of remaining 401(k) eligibility will still be able to retire at age 65 with savings and Social Security equal to 80 percent of their real pre-retirement income levels, even when factoring in actual rates of cashout, hardship withdrawals, and loans—INCLUDING the impact of loan defaults.

The impact at an individual level can, of course, be more severe—something that will be explored by future EBRI research.

A Problem to Fix?

There is, however, a potentially larger philosophical issue: whether the utilization of these funds prior to retirement constitutes a “leakage” crisis that cries out for a remedy. We don’t know how many participants and their families have been spared true financial hardship in the “here-and-now” by virtue of access to funds they set aside in these programs. Nor do we know that individuals chose to defer the receipt of current compensation specifically for retirement, rather than for interim (but important) savings goals—such as home ownership or college tuition—that make their own contributions to retirement security. It’s hard to know how many of these participants would have committed to saving at all, or to saving at the amounts they chose, if they (particularly the young with decades of work ahead of them) had to balance that against a realization that those monies would be unavailable until retirement.

In fixing the recent leakage problem in our home, the plumber replaced the worn gaskets, but at the same time sought to improve on things by tightening (as it turns out, over-tightening) some of the connections further up the line. That extra step produced an unanticipated outcome that didn’t show up until the next day, in dramatic fashion. Like my plumbing problem, retirement plan “leakage,” unminded, has the potential to cause damage—to deplete and undermine retirement savings. However, a view that all pre-retirement distributions from these programs are a problem that requires redress not only ignores the law and regulations as written, it also has the potential to create unanticipated changes in savings behaviors.

And the data—based on hard data from actual participant balances and activity—indicate that such concerns are at least somewhat premature.

Notes

¹ The EBRI/ICI Participant-Directed Retirement Plan Data Collection Project is the largest, most representative repository of information about individual 401(k) plan participant accounts in the world. As of December 31, 2010, the EBRI/ICI database included statistical information about 23.4 million 401(k) plan participants, in 64,455 employer-sponsored 401(k) plans, representing $1.414 trillion in assets. The 2010 EBRI/ICI database covered 46 percent of the universe of 401(k) plan participants.

² Workers are assumed to retire at age 65 and all 401(k) balances are converted into a real annuity at an annuity purchase price of 18.62. Additionally, the projections assume no break in contributions occurs with a change in employers, that the maximum employee contribution is 6 percent of compensation.

³ Those in the higher income quartile have more trouble reaching the success threshold, given the PIA formula in Social Security. Cashouts, loans and hardship withdrawals have approximately the same impact as for those in the lowest income quartile.

Home Ownership Trends Among Older Americans

Home ownership peaks at age 65, then falls slowly until the age of 75, when the rate of home ownership declines steadily, according to a new report by EBRI.

The EBRI study finds that owning is the most common housing arrangement for older Americans: At the traditional retirement age of 65, more than 8 in 10 Americans report living in houses they own. After 65, home ownership rates fall and at the age of 90, 6 in 10 Americans report living in their own houses.

“Housing is not only an asset, it also provides housing services,” said Sudipto Banerjee, EBRI research associate and author of the report. “That is why housing wealth does not start to decline until people reach very advanced ages.”

EBRI’s research shows that death of a spouse is the most common factor associated with a housing transition: Almost 42 percent of households that went from owning to renting experienced the death of spouses. The next-most common factor is a drop in household income: 30.5 percent of households that made such transitions also reported drops in household income. Just over 1 in 10 households that shift from owning to renting report nursing-home entry of a family member (self or spouse).

The full report, “Own to Rent Transitions and Changes in Housing Equity for Older Americans,”  is published in the July 2012 EBRI Notes, online here.

The Employee Benefit Research Institute is a private, nonpartisan, nonprofit research institute based in Washington, DC, that focuses on health, savings, retirement, and economic security issues. EBRI does not lobby and does not take policy positions. The work of EBRI is made possible by funding from its members and sponsors, which includes a broad range of public, private, for-profit and nonprofit organizations.

Facts and “Figures”

By Nevin Adams, EBRI

A recent paper from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College was titled “401(k) Plans in 2010: An Update from the SCF.”  The SCF¹ (perhaps better known to non-researchers as the Survey of Consumer Finances) is, as its name suggests, a survey of consumer households “to provide detailed information on the finances of U.S. families.”  It’s conducted every three years by the Federal Reserve, and is eagerly awaited and widely used—from analysis at the Federal Reserve and other branches of government to scholarly work at the major economic research centers.  The 2010 version was published in June.

As valuable as the SCF information is, it’s important to remember that it contains self-reported information from approximately 6,500 households in 2010, which is to say the results are what individuals told the surveying organizations on a range of household finance issues (typically over a 90 minute period); of those households, only about 2,100 had defined contribution retirement accounts.  Also, the SCF does not necessarily include the same households from one survey period to the next.

The CRR analysis incorporated some of the SCF data (ownership of a retirement plan account, participation, median 401(k)/IRA account balances, asset allocations within those accounts, and distribution/loan patterns).  The report then brings in data from other sources on features such as automatic enrollment, hardship withdrawals, and IRAs to complete its assessment, summarized on its website as “Progress in the 401(k) system stalled in the wake of the economic crisis.”

The summary went on to note that “despite an increase in auto-enrollment, the percent of employees not participating ticked up,” “401(k) contributions slipped, while leakages through cash outs, loans, and hardship withdrawals increased”—and that, “…the typical household approaching retirement had only $120,000 in 401(k)/IRA holdings in 2010, about the same as in 2007.”  Setting aside for a moment the question of what “typical” is, a logical research question arises:  Are these statements a researcher’s extrapolation, or based upon hard data, and thus “facts”?

What We Know

EBRI research has previously noted that, while the financial crisis of 2008 had a significant impact on retirement savings balances, as recently as just a month ago, more than 94 percent of the consistent participants in the EBRI/ICI 401(k) database² are estimated to have balances higher than they did at the pre-recession market peak of October 9, 2007 (see “Returns Engagement”).   According to a number of industry surveys, participation rates have remained relatively consistent, despite the soft economy and tumultuous market environment, and EBRI research finds comparable trends in loan activity (see “401(k) Plan Asset Allocation, Account Balances, and Loan Activity In 2010”).   Also, at year-end 2010, the data show that 401(k) loan balances outstanding declined slightly from those in the past few years.

What else do we know?

We know that the number of future years that workers are eligible to participate in a defined contribution plan makes a tremendous difference in their at-risk ratings (See “Opportunity Costs”).

We know that automatic enrollment, where deployed, has a significant positive impact on retirement readiness (see “The Impact of Automatic Enrollment in 401(k) Plans on Future Retirement Accumulations: A Simulation Study Based on Plan Design Modifications of Large Plan Sponsors”; “EBRI:  Auto-Enrollment Trend Boosts Retirement Readiness Ratings”).

We know that “averages” are easy to understand, and relatively easy to calculate—but they don’t always provide an accurate³ portrayal of the real world (see “Above Average”).

We also know that it’s important to understand the source and composition of data—particularly when using self-reported results, drawing from multiple sources, and creating a composite perspective.

Notes

(1)    The 2010 Survey of Consumer Finances is available here.

(2)    As of December 31, 2010, the EBRI/ICI database included statistical information on about 23.4 million 401(k) plan participants, in nearly 65,000 employer-sponsored 401(k) plans, representing $1.414 trillion in assets.  The 2010 EBRI/ICI database covered 46 percent of the universe of 401(k) plan participants, and 47 percent of 401(k) plan assets. 

(3)    When analyzing the change in participant account balances over time, it is important to have a consistent sample. Comparing average account balances across different year-end snapshots can lead to false conclusions. For example, the addition of a large number of new plans (arguably a good event) to the database would tend to pull down the average account balance, which could then be mistakenly described as an indication that balances are declining, but actually would tell us nothing about consistently participating workers.