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CRR Issues Brief on Late Boomers’ Retirement Wealth

On August 1, 2023, the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College (CRR) released its issue brief, What Happened to Late Boomers’ Retirement Wealth? The brief indicates that Late Boomers have less retirement wealth than previous cohorts, including lower than expected 401(k) balances. CRR analyzed the changing demographics and labor market experience to examine the decline in retirement wealth.

The analysis suggested that there were two primary factors that impacted the retirement wealth of Late Boomers including:

  • The changing composition of households towards lower-wealth with part of the decline due to a decrease in the share of the cohort that are White, married and have college degrees; and
  • A weakening connection between work and wealth accumulation for the Late Boomers who were in their 40s during the Great Recession and were unable to recover financially.

The brief concludes, “The Great Recession story is a bit of good news for younger cohorts, as some of the downward pressure on their wealth holdings should abate.”

The brief is based on data using the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to examine actual patterns of wealth accumulation by cohort and the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) to get information on the experience of Late Boomers over their work life.

The brief is available here.