We use information from Social Security earnings records to examine the accuracy of survey responses regarding participation in tax-deferred pension plans. As employer-provided defined benefit pensions are replaced by voluntary contribution plans, employees’ understanding of the link between...

Social Security Administration W-2 records contain employee annual tax-deferred contributions for 1990-2003 and sufficient information to calculate tax-deferred contributions for 1984-1989. We use this information to compare tax-deferred contribution profiles of three cohorts of respondents in...

This research examines the determinants of eligibility and participation in 401(k) plans using two cross-sections of data from the Health and Retirement Study. Our sample consists of workers ages 51-56 representing two cohorts: the original HRS cohort born 1931-41, first interviewed in 1992, and...

This article examines how savings in defined contribution (DC) retirement plans vary across the earnings distribution. Specifically, the authors investigate the extent of an earnings gradient in access to, participation in, and levels of contribution to DC plans. Using a nationally...

Social Security benefits comprise the most important source of income for people aged 65 and over. However, changes in the last decades in employer-provided pensions, Social Security program, and societal changes may have altered the composition of income sources among the elderly. Some...

Research has shown that survey-reported pension and retirement income measures may suffer from reporting errors, which lead to biased estimates of income and poverty of the aged population. In this paper, the authors evaluate income estimates from the Census Bureau’s 2016 Current Population...

Using data from several sources, we show that households nearing retirement have lower rates of housing distress than younger households, as measured by arrears and foreclosure rates. However, almost all of the housing wealth gains observed for cohorts aged 51-56 between 1992 and 2004 were...