The National Retirement Risk Index with varying claiming ages

Abstract

The brief's key findings are: (1) Households ages 62-75 have substantial earnings. (2) The National Retirement Risk Index, which assumes all households claim Social Security -- and retire -- at 65, does not count earnings after 65. (3) So, about half of all earnings for those 62-75 are excluded from the Index and could distort the results. (4) Introducing more realistic claiming ages for low-, middle-, and high-income households solves two problems: Increases the earnings in the Index to two-thirds, with the rest going mainly to high earners where it has little impact. Produces a more sensible pattern of percentage "at risk" by income group. (6) One thing that doesn't change is the overall percentage of today's working households at risk: that's still about 50 percent.