Pension Publications

Many government agencies and private organizations collect statistics, conduct studies, and issue reports related to pensions and retirement income security. Click the links below to read reports on the following topics:

General Pension Reports
Defined Benefit vs. Defined Contribution Plans
Defined Benefit Plans
Defined Contribution Plans
Pension Plan Freezes, Changes, and Trends
Wealth, Savings, and Retirement Reports
Women's Retirement Security
Polls Related to Retirement Security
Public Pension Plans

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These are the latest reports added to our web site:

• Is Pension Inequality Growing? (Center for Retirement Research, January 2010). This brief documents and explores trends in pension participation by income. (General Pension Reports)

• Pension Coverage and Retirement Security (Center for Retirement Research, December 2009). At any given moment in time, only about half of private sector workers are covered by any sort of employer-sponsored plan. This lack of coverage has two implications. (General Pension Reports)

• Private Pension Plan Bulletin: Abstract of 2007 Form 5500 Annual Reports (Employee Benefits Security Administration, December 2009). This report, published annually, provides basic statistical data on the types of retirement plans offered, how many people participated in each type of plan, and the amount of assets in each type. (General Pension Reports)

• Private Pension Plan Bulletin Historical Tables and Graphs (Employee Benefits Security Administration, December 2009). This report provides basic statistical data on the types of retirement plans offered, how many people participated in each type of plan, and the amount of assets in each type from 1975 through 2007. (General Pension Reports)

• Does Autoenrollment Affect Employer Contributions? (Urban Institute, December 2009). Low participation rates limit the effectiveness of 401(k) plans as a reliable source of retirement income. About one in five workers eligible to participate in their employer’s 401(k) plans do not enroll (Munnell, Golub-Sass, and Muldoon 2009). Firms can raise participation rates by automatically enrolling employees as soon as they become eligible. However, higher participation rates increase costs for employers that match employee contributions, and firms appear to reduce the rate at which they contribute to 401(k) plans when they adopt autoenrollment. (Reports on Defined Contribution Plans)

• 401(k) Plans and Race (Center for Retirement Research, November 2009). Many data sources show a disparity among racial and ethnic groups regarding participation in and contributions to 401(k) plans. The question is whether racial and ethnic differentials remain after controlling for a broader array of factors included in a nationally representative sample of households, the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF). (Reports on Defined Contribution Plans)

• Income of Americans Aged 65 and Older, 1968 to 2008 (Congressional Research Service, November 2009). This CRS report presents data collected by the Census Bureau in the Current Population Survey from 1969 through 2009 about the employment status and the sources and amounts of income received by people aged 65 and older. The report focuses on the sources and amounts of income received by individuals aged 65 and older and by households in which either the household head or the household head’s spouse (if present) was 65 or older in the year of the survey. (Wealth, Savings, and Retirement Reports)

• Income and Poverty Among Older Americans in 2008 (Congressional Research Service, October 2009). This report describes the sources and amounts of income received by the 37.8 million Americans aged 65 and older who lived in non-institutional settings in 2008. (Wealth, Savings, and Retirement Reports)

• The Disappearing Defined Benefit Pension and Its Potential Impact on the Retirement Incomes of Baby Boomers (Social Security Administration, October 2009). This article uses a microsimulation model to estimate how freezing all remaining private-sector and one-third of all public-sector defined benefit (DB) pension plans over the next 5 years would affect retirement incomes of baby boomers. (Reports on Defined Benefit Plans and Pension Plan Freezes, Changes, and Trends)