Saving for retirement: The U.S. case

Abstract

This paper discusses the personal saving behavior and the retirement behavior of households in the United States. It shows that a typical U.S. household owns virtually no financial savings even at ages approaching retirement. Most personal saving is in the form of housing equity, which, however, is not decumulated during retirement and thus cannot be counted on as retirement wealth. Saving for retirement is largely conducted by corporations and government through pension plans and Social Security. It also presents evidence indicating a relatively large impact on the Individual Retirement Account program on personal savings. The paper casts doubts on the applicability of the pure life-cycle saving hypothesis for the U.S. households. J. Japan. Int. Econ., December 1988, 2(4), pp. 385–416. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138; and National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138.