Is There a Retirement Savings Crisis, or Isn’t There? Economists Debate the Question
How much do you really need? And what’s the best yardstick for measuring progress toward accumulating what you’ll need in retirement? These are not easy questions to answer, and economists and financial planners are split on what to recommend. Some lean toward the accumulation of wealth that approximates ten times pre-retirement earnings, while others speculate that an accumulation goal as robust as that is not truly reflective of retirement needs…for several key reasons.
To shed some light on the debate, the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, working in conjunction with the Social Security Administration, recently published a study titled “Do Households Increase Their Savings When the Kids Leave Home?” Teresa Ghilarducci, a contributing writer for The Atlantic and a professor of economic policy analysis at the New School for Social Research in New York, analyzes this conundrum in an article posted at www.theatlantic.com. Check it out here…