Nevin's Data "Points"

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 SCF 1 (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 contribu...

This weekend marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the now iconic RMS Titanic, at the time the world’s largest ocean liner. Its passengers included some of the wealthiest people in the world, as well as a large number of emigrants seeking a new life in North America. On the ocean liner’s maiden—and only—voyage, it carried 2,244 people, 1,514 of whom would perish as a result of a decision to carry only enough lifeboats to accommodate about half those on board. Despite that, the tale of Titanic’s closing hours is generally one of an orderly, “women and children first” evacuation, with the band playing on while passengers stood in line and waited their turn. In an NPR report this week titled “ Why Didn’t Passengers Panic on the Titanic? ” David Savage, an economist and Queensland University in Australia, compared the behavior of the passengers on the Titanic with those on the Lusitania, another ship that also sunk at about the same time. Both involved luxury liners, both had...

In response to concerns that tomorrow’s retirees will run short of money, we are often told to save more, to work longer, or – as often as not these days – to work longer AND save more. Certainly working and saving longer can do wonders in terms of stretching your retirement nest egg. However, the timing of the retirement decision is often not within an individual’s control. In fact, the Retirement Confidence Survey has consistently found that a large percentage of retirees leave the work force earlier than planned. In fact, nearly half (45 percent) of retirees reported that they were in this situation in 2011 (see EBRI Issue Brief No. 355, March 2011, The 2011 Retirement Confidence Survey: Confidence Drops to Record Lows, Reflecting “the New Normal” ). Real-world data have shown (and shown for some time now) that the median retirement age for Americans is not even as old as 65 (it’s been 62). Still, EBRI research has shown that working longer – even working past the age of 6...