Trends in Employer-Sponsored Retirement Plan Access and Participation Rates: Reconciling Different Data Sources

Teresa Ghilarducci, Siavash Radpour and Michael Papadopoulos
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Michael Papadopoulos: Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (SCEPA), https://www.economicpolicyresearch.org

No 2021-02, SCEPA publication series. from Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (SCEPA), The New School

Abstract: Analysts and representatives of the news media often get confused about American workers' retirement plan coverage due to the complexities behind multiple data sources. Namely, differing methodologies used by each source report different results. This research note updates previous attempts to explain the data differences and reports trends between 2000 and 2020 in two measures of employer-sponsored retirement plan coverage: access rate (the share of workers who are offered a retirement plan at work and are eligible to participate in them) and participation rate (the share of all workers who are participating in retirement plans offered at work). We also break down retirement plan access and participation rates by race, gender, and socio-economic status to report disparities in coverage.

Keywords: older workers; recession; COVID-19; coronavirus; downward mobility; poverty; unemployment; wages; involuntary retirement; retirement; 401k; Medicare; Older Workers Bureau; racial disparities; disparities; inequality; coverage; retirement coverage (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E24 J30 J38 J58 J60 J88 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-ias and nep-mac
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