This page lists the three most recent items in each category with a link to past research in each category. These files are in pdf format and require Adobe Reader for viewing and printing.
Issue Briefs -- Updated January 23, 2008
January 2008 #313 - "Listening to Consumers: Value-Focused Health Benefits and Education"
• Importance of education in consumer-directed health plans: Greater education of workers about health care and health insurance is widely viewed as critical to the success of consumer-directed health plans, since these rapidly growing health benefit plans typically require far greater responsibility and impose more direct costs on individual health plan participants.
• How can employers educate their workers about health coverage? Is there a payback? Since the vast majority of Americans who have health coverage obtain it through their (or a family member’s) employer, and with health benefits on track to become the single-largest expense of any employee benefit, the issue of education is important both to the sponsors and the beneficiaries of health insurance coverage. Among the key questions facing employers: What kind of education will work? And is there a payback for trying to educate workers about health coverage and care?
• “Top-down” efforts to control costs haven’t worked for long in the past. Trying to “activate consumerism” by promoting consumer-directed health plans seems little different from past managed care attempts to stem out-of-control health costs by changing consumer behavior. But past (and current) “top down” approaches, structured without a better understanding of what consumers need to know and what they value, are likely to be ineffective over time. There is no research consensus that consumer-driven health benefits alone will contain health care costs.
• Importance of consumer values: As marketers have known for years, consumers’ values are the powerful motivators in the psychology of decision making. They involve people’s perceptions about what constitutes life quality, reflect deeply held cultural and personal meanings, vary in importance from person to person, and they can appear to others as irrational and vague.
• The need for values-focused education and wellness outreach: In order to inspire consumers to choose healthy lifestyles and make cost-effective care decisions, they need help resisting some entrenched unhealthful dimensions of American culture and education that takes their psycho-social and income-security concerns into account. But consumers have little or no input into the “consumerism” discussed among policymakers and employers today, and few are receiving health education that addresses their psycho-social and income-security concerns.
• “Consumerism” in health care risks failure by ignoring consumer values. Should health education initiatives prove ineffective, the “consumer-driven health movement” could well be doomed, especially if it relies upon fully educated health consumers taking self-initiated actions. The perceived ineffectiveness of education in 401(k) plans resulted in legislation to add “defaults” to these plans so that they no longer relied upon positive employee action. In the health arena, the default approach is exactly what the consumer-driven health model seeks to move away from.
November 2007 #311 - "Employment-Based Retirement Plan Participation: Geographic Differences and Trends, 2006" --
Participation level: Among working age full-time, full-year wage and salary workers, 53 percent participated in a retirement plan.
--> Trend: This is down from approximately 55 percent in 2004. Participation trends increased significantly when the labor market was tight in the late 1990s, and decreased when unemployment went up in 2001 and 2002. With a more stable job market in 2003 and 2004, the participation trend flattened out. But even with the stable job market in 2005 and 2006, the retirement plan participation level declined; therefore, it appears a much tighter job market may be needed to push participation trends upward.
--> Age: Participation increases with age (60.1 percent for wage and salary workers age 54–64, compared with 29.3 percent for those 21–24).
--> Gender: Among all workers, men had a higher participation level than women, but among full-time, full-year workers, women had a higher percentage participating than men (54.4 percent for women, compared with 51.4 percent for men). Female workers’ lower probability of participation in the aggregate results from their overall lower earnings and/or lower rates of full-time work in comparison with males.
--> Race: Hispanic wage and salary workers were significantly less likely than both white and black workers to participate in a retirement plan. The gap between the percentages of black and white plan participants that exists overall narrows when compared across earnings levels; among workers earning $30,000–$39,999, black and white workers had a virtually identical level of participation. A key factor in Hispanic participation levels is whether the worker is native-born or nonnative-born; native-born Hispanics have participation levels closer to other minority groups.
September 2007 #309 - "Health Insurance and Taxes: Can changing the Tax Treatment of Health Insurance Fix Our Health Care System?" -- This Issue Brief examines fundamental tax reform as it relates to employment-based health benefits and health insurance. These proposals would affect those with coverage through an employer, those who purchase coverage on their own, and those who are uninsured. They include:
--> A tax cap and employment-based benefits—“Capping” employers’ tax deductions for health coverage, and/or workers’ tax exclusion for health care benefits, could mean the end of employment-based health benefits. A tax cap would mean a tax increase for some individuals, and the tax increase could be driven by health status and geography more than it is driven by the comprehensiveness of insurance.
--> Tax caps and cost containment—The cap on workers’ tax exclusion for health insurance probably would not have much impact on the comprehensiveness of health benefits, at least initially. Over time, the impact of the cap on the tax exclusion should grow as long as insurance premium growth exceeds overall inflation, but it could be many years before the higher taxes are a large enough burden to drive people toward less comprehensive benefits.
---> Tax credits and the uninsured—The ability of a tax credit to reduce the uninsured depends heavily on several key design issues, such as the size of the tax credit relative to income and income levels overall. Previous research has shown that even very generous tax credits might not be large enough for a major portion of the low-income population to buy health insurance.
Past EBRI Issue Briefs on retirement and savings
EBRI Notes -- Updated April 17, 2008
April 2008 - "Facts from EBRI—The Basics of Social Security: Updated With the 2008 Board of Trustees Report" -- The Social Security Board of Trustees released their 2008 update March 25 on short-range (10 year) and long-range (75-year) projections for the Social Security trust funds. Under intermediate assumptions, the combined OASDI trust fund expenses are expected to exceed income from taxes in 2017. By 2027, OASDI expenses are expected to exceed income from taxes plus interest income, and the trust fund is expected to be exhausted by 2041.
March 2008 - "Total Individual Account Retirement Plan Assets, by Demographics, 2004" -- This analysis uses the most recent data (2004) from the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), a triennial survey of family finances by the Federal Reserve Board, as well historical SCF data, to examine the demographic factors associated with the ownership of individual account retirement plan assets. It examines the distribution of total assets held in individual account retirement plans across demographic characteristics of American families. Distribution of the retirement plan assets is then compared against the distribution of all assets owned across these demographic characteristics.
January 2008 - "Retirement Annuity and Employment-Based Pension Income, Among Individuals Age 50 and Over, 2006"
• Demographics affect pension income: The most recent data from the March 2007 Current Population Survey confirm earlier findings that gender, marital status, age, education, and other demographic variables have a significant impact on the likelihood of a worker receiving a retirement annuity and/or employment-based pension income in retirement.
• Educational differences: In 2006, 27.5 percent of men age 50 and older with a graduate-level education received an annuity and/or pension income, compared with 21.7 percent of men without a high school diploma—a differential of almost 6 percentage points. Men with graduate-level degrees received nearly three times the median annuity and/or pension income of men without a high school diploma.
• Gender differences still big but shrinking: A woman age 65 or over in 2006 was almost two-thirds as likely to receive an annuity and/or pension payment as her male counterpart; if she did receive one, her mean benefit was likely to be about 65 percent of that received by a man in the same age group. However, as other EBRI research has shown, women’s participation in retirement plans has risen significantly relative to men in recent years, closing the “gender gap” in retirement plan participation—even though retirement plan participation has been declining for both men and women. Hence, the aggregate pension and annuity recipiency for women and the amounts they receive are likely to increase over time as these younger generations retire.
Past EBRI Notes articles on retirement and savings
Fast Facts from EBRI -- Updated May 6, 2008
May 6, 2008 “Saving for Retirement: Men and Women Compared”
April 17, 2008 “How Much Have Workers Saved for Retirement?”
March 26, 2008 “Pension and Annuity Income: Gender Differences”
Past Fast Facts from EBRI on retirement and savings
EBRI Surveys -- Updated April 17, 2008
April 2008 - "The 2008 Retirement Confidence Survey: Americans Much More Worried About Retirement, Health Costs a Big Concern" -- Americans’ confidence in their ability to afford a comfortable retirement has dropped to its lowest level in seven years, reflecting worries about health costs, the economy, and home values, according to the 18th annual Retirement Confidence Survey® (RCS). Decreases in confidence occurred across all age groups and income levels but were particularly acute among younger workers and those with lower income.
Additional information is at 2008 Retirement Confidence Survey.
March 2008 - "Preparing for Their Future: A Look at the Financial State of Gen X and Gen Y" -- Members of Generations X and Y, acknowledging that they need to pick up the slack when it comes to planning for their futures, are thinking about retirement and have defined financial goals according to a report released today by the American Savings Education Council (ASEC) and the Divided We Fail group (AARP, Business Roundtable, National Federation of Independent Business and the Service Employees International Union).
The on-line survey of 1,752 individuals between the ages of 19-39 was conducted between January 4 and 24, 2008.
March 2008 - "Finding from the 2007 EBRI/Commonwealth FundConsumerism in Health Survey" -- This Issue Brief presents findings from the 2007 EBRI/Commonwealth Fund Consumerism in Health Care Survey. The online survey of 4,217 privately insured adults ages 21–64 was conducted to provide nationally representative data regarding the growth of account-based health plans and high-deductible health plans (HDHPs), and their impact on the behavior and attitudes of health care consumers.
Past EBRI Surveys on retirement and savings
Databook -- see chapter for when last updated.
Chapter 6 -- Income Statistics of the Population Ages 55 and Over - Data is presented here on the following: percentage of the older population in poverty; real median income of the older population by gender; median and mean income of the population by education, marital status and race; real median income by age and source of income; comparison of the measurement of retirement income between the Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic (March) Supplement and the National Income and Product Accounts of the United States. The end of the chapter contains a reference section to other EBRI research on income statistics of the population ages 55 and over in a question and answer format.
Chapter 7 -- Sources of Income for Persons Ages 55 and Over - Data is presented here on the following: percentage distribution of population and income by detailed income source, mean income, and median income; aged income from private sector and public sector defined benefit plans; private sector and public sector defined benefit plans by age of recipient; median income from major sources, married couples and unmarried individuals aged 65 and over; percentage of individuals aged 55 and over with income from specified sources and percentage distribution of income from all sources by age; percentage of individuals aged 65 and over with income from specified sources and percentage distribution of income from all sources by income quintile. The end of the chapter contains a reference section to other EBRI research on sources of income for persons ages 55 and over in a question and answer format.
Chapter 8 -- Retirement Annuity and Employment-Based Pension Income - Data is presented here on the following: percentage receiving, median, and mean amount of retirement annuity and/or employment-based pension income recipiency. The data is presented for the following demographics: age, sex, industry, education, marital status, and income quintile. The end of the chapter contains a reference section to other EBRI research on retirement annuity and employment-based pension income in a question and answer format.
Chapter 9 -- U.S. Savings Rates - Data is presented on two government measurements of the personal savings rate in the United States, the National Income and Product Accounts of the United State and the Flow of Funds Accounts of the United States. The end of the chapter contains a reference section to other EBRI research on personal savings in a question and answer format.
Chapter 10 -- Aggregate Trends in Defined Benefit and Defined Contribution Retirement Plan Sponsorship, Participation, and Vesting - Data in this chapter is drawn from four sources: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, National Compensation Survey; U.S. Department of Labor, Employee Benefit Security Administration, Tabulations off the Form 5500; U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Current Population Survey, Employee Benefit Supplement and Survey of Income and Program Participation ; U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic (or March) Supplement. The end of the chapter contains a reference section to other EBRI research on personal savings in a question and answer format.
