@article {Hou12,
	title = {Measuring Racial/Ethnic Retirement Wealth Inequality},
	journal = {The Journal of Retirement},
	volume = {8},
	year = {2021},
	pages = {12{\textendash}28},
	abstract = {As the US population becomes more diverse, it will be increasingly important for policymakers addressing Social Security{\textquoteright}s solvency to understand how reliant various racial and ethnic groups will be on the program versus other sources of retirement wealth. Yet, to date, studies on retirement wealth have tended not to focus on race and ethnicity, have largely ignored the role of Social Security, or have excluded the most recent cohort approaching retirement{\textemdash}the Late Boomers. This project uses data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to document the retirement resources of White, Black, and Hispanic households at various points in the wealth distribution for five HRS cohorts of 51- to 56-year-olds between 1992 and 2016.TOPICS: Retirement, wealth management, social securityKey Findings▪ In 2016, the typical Black household had 46 percent of the retirement wealth of the typical White household; the typical Hispanic household had 49 percent. This inequality would be much higher but for the presence of Social Security.▪ The 1992 to 2010 HRS cohorts showed little change in retirement wealth inequality, although a decline in 51- to 56-year-old White households{\textquoteright} retirement wealth between 2010 and 2016 narrowed the racial and ethnic gaps in retirement wealth slightly.▪ The progressivity of Social Security, combined with lower average incomes for minority households, means that replacement rates are more equal than wealth{\textemdash}in 2016, the replacement rate of Black households was 82 percent of White households and Hispanic households was 95 percent.},
	keywords = {Retirement, Social Security, Wealth management},
	issn = {2326-6899},
	doi = {10.3905/jor.2020.1.079},
	author = {Wenliang Hou and Geoffrey T. Sanzenbacher}
}
@article {RePEc:crr:issbrf:ib2020-2,
	title = {Social Security Is a Great Equalizer},
	year = {2020},
	institution = {Center for Retirement Research},
	abstract = {As the U.S. population becomes more diverse, it will be increasingly important for policymakers addressing Social Security{\textquoteright}s solvency to understand the extent to which various racial and ethnic groups rely on Social Security versus other sources of retirement wealth. Yet, to date, studies on retirement wealth have tended not to focus on race and ethnicity and have largely ignored the role of Social Security. This brief, based on a recent paper, uses data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to document the retirement resources of white, black, and Hispanic households at various points in the wealth distribution for five cohorts of 51-56 year olds between 1992 and 2016. The discussion proceeds as follows. The first section explains the calculation of retirement wealth. The second section shows how Social Security reduces retirement wealth inequality by race and ethnicity for typical households in each cohort. The third section looks at the impact of Social Security on retirement wealth inequality across wealth quintiles in a single year. The fourth section shifts from wealth to income to examine replacement rates {\textendash} the ratio of projected retirement income to pre-retirement earnings. The final section concludes that, as policymakers consider changes to bring Social Security into fiscal balance, the distributional impact of any benefit cuts with respect to minority groups may be worth considering.},
	keywords = {Social Security},
	url = {https://ideas.repec.org/p/crr/issbrf/ib2020-2.html},
	author = {Wenliang Hou and Geoffrey T. Sanzenbacher}
}
@article {hou_munnell_sanzenbacher_li_2020,
	title = {Why are US men retiring later?},
	journal = {Journal of Pension Economics and Finance},
	volume = {19},
	year = {2020},
	pages = {442{\textendash}457},
	abstract = {
Over the past two decades, the share of individuals claiming Social Security at the Early Eligibility Age has dropped and the average retirement age has increased. At the same time, Social Security rules have changed substantially, employer-sponsored retirement plans have shifted from defined benefit (DB) to defined contribution (DC), health has improved, and mortality has decreased. In theory, all of these changes could lead to a trend toward later claiming. Disentangling the effect of any one change is difficult because they have been occurring simultaneously. This paper uses the Gustman and Steinmeier structural model of retirement timing to investigate which of these changes matter most by simulating their effects on the original cohort (1931{\textendash}1941) of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). The predicted behavior is then compared with the actual retirements of the Early Boomer cohort (1948{\textendash}1953) to see how much of the later cohort{\textquoteright}s delayed claiming and retirement can be explained by these changes. The Early Boomer cohort was less likely to be fully retired than the HRS cohort at both age 62 (36.7\% vs. 44.0\%) and age 64 (49.5\% vs. 53.9\%). The model suggests that the shift from DB toward DC plans was the biggest contributor to these declines, followed by better health. Social Security rules and improvements in mortality played smaller roles.},
	keywords = {Pension plans, Retirement Decision, retirement timing, Social Security, structural model},
	doi = {10.1017/S1474747218000331},
	author = {Wenliang Hou and Alicia H. Munnell and Geoffrey T. Sanzenbacher and Yinji Li}
}
@article {10776,
	title = {Why Are U.S. Households Claiming Social Security Later?},
	number = {WP$\#$2017-3},
	year = {2017},
	institution = {Center for Retirement Research at Boston College},
	abstract = {Over the past two decades, the share of individuals claiming Social Security at the Early Eligibility Age has dropped, and the average retirement age has increased.  At the same time, Social Security rules have changed substantially, employer-sponsored retirement plans have shifted from defined benefit (DB) to defined contribution (DC), health has improved, and mortality has decreased.  In theory, all of these changes could lead to a trend toward later claiming.  Disentangling the effect of any one change is difficult because they have been occurring simultaneously.  This paper uses the Gustman and Steinmeier structural model of retirement timing to investigate which of these changes matter most by simulating their effects on the original cohort (1931-1941 birth years) of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS).  The predicted behavior is then compared to the actual retirements of the Early Baby Boomer cohort (1948-1953 birth years) to see how much of the later cohort{\textquoteright}s delayed claiming and retirement can be explained by these changes.},
	keywords = {Social Security, Social Security Benefits},
	url = {https://crr.bc.edu/working-papers/why-are-u-s-households-claiming-social-security-later/},
	author = {Wenliang Hou and Alicia H. Munnell and Yinji Li and Geoffrey T. Sanzenbacher}
}
