Ready for Retirement?

Let’s talk about retirement, again.  Are  various generations retirement-ready?

I was reading the most recent issue of the Employee Benefits Research Institute EBRI EBRIef  (if you don’t get it-you can subscribe here). As an aside, someday I’d like to meet the author-the titles are truly clever!

One of the articles mentioned in the brief was an October, 2013 report from Vanguard Research, written by Daniel W. Wallick, Julieann Shanahan & Christos Tasopoulos: Baby Boomers and Equity Returns: Will a Boom in Retirees Lead to a Bust in Equity Returns? that, according to the executive summary, looks at 

“three key factors that contradict the presumption that aging baby boomers’ investment behavior is likely do damage stock market returns going forward… [t]he specific characteristics of the baby boom generation; … globalization of U.S. equity ownership; and … lack of any statically significant relationship between age and equity return.”

Another October, 2013 report mentioned is written by Billie Jean Miller & Sylvester J. Schieber.  This report, published by Towers Watson, is titled Employer Plans, IRAs and Retirement Income Provision: Making a Molehill Out of a Mountain.  The “at a glance” summary mentions that “[t]he evidence that the majority of retirees rely mostly on Social Security benefits dramatically underreports the retirement income provided by employer plans and IRAs, and overstates the role of Social Security.”

Lots of great stuff from the EBRI folks. Subscribe today!