How Many Struggle to Get By in Retirement?

Barbara Butrica, Daniel Murphy () and Sheila Zedlewski

Working Papers, Center for Retirement Research at Boston College from Center for Retirement Research

Abstract: The official poverty measure in the United States fails to reflect modern day economic resources and spending needs. The official measure is based only on cash income and does not include in-kind transfers, capital gains and losses, taxes, out-of-pocket health spending, the value of owner-occupied housing, or the potential income from financial assets. Also, the official poverty thresholds that define minimal needs, set back in 1963 and updated to changes in the CPI, do not capture current spending patterns. These shortcomings especially pertain to adults age 65 and older because their resources, needs, and health expenses differ most dramatically from the assumptions reflected in the official measure.

Pages: 42 pages
Date: 2007, Revised 2007
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://crr.bc.edu/working-papers/how-many-struggle-to-get-by-in-retirement/

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:crr:crrwps:wp2007-27

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers, Center for Retirement Research at Boston College from Center for Retirement Research Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Amy Grzybowski () and Christopher F Baum ().