Shifting income sources of the aged

Traditional defined benefit pensions, once a major source of retirement income, are increasingly giving way to tax-qualified defined contribution (DC) plans and individual retirement accounts (IRAs). This trend is likely to continue among future retirees who have worked in the private sector. This a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Social security bulletin 2012-08, Vol.72 (3), p.59-68
Main Authors: Anguelov, Chris E, Iams, Howard M, Purcell, Patrick J
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Age Distribution
Aged
Benefits
Defined contribution plans
Female
Humans
Income
Income - statistics & numerical data
Income - trends
Individual retirement accounts
Male
Marital Status
Middle Aged
Old age
Pensions
Pensions - statistics & numerical data
Population
Private Sector - economics
Private Sector - statistics & numerical data
Private Sector - trends
Retirees
Retirement
Retirement - economics
Retirement - statistics & numerical data
Retirement - trends
Retirement income
Social insurance
Social Security - economics
Surveys
United States
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Summary:Traditional defined benefit pensions, once a major source of retirement income, are increasingly giving way to tax-qualified defined contribution (DC) plans and individual retirement accounts (IRAs). This trend is likely to continue among future retirees who have worked in the private sector. This article discusses the implications of those trends for the measurement of retirement income. We conclude that Census Bureau's Current Population Survey (CPS), one of the primary sources of income data, greatly underreports distributions from DC plans and IRAs, posing an increasing problem for measuring retirement income in the future. The CPS and other data sources need to revise their measures of retirement income to account for periodic (irregular) distributions from DC plans and IRAs.
ISSN:0037-7910