@article {8415,
	title = {Trends in Retirement Satisfaction in the United States: Fewer Having a Great Time},
	journal = {EBRI Notes},
	volume = {37},
	year = {2016},
	pages = {1-12},
	publisher = {37},
	abstract = {Most of the existing research on overall retirement satisfaction of retirees uses single-year data and focuses on identifying and measuring the factors that may affect retirement satisfaction. However, the analysis presented in this paper uses data from the 1998-2012 rounds of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to illustrate longer trends in retirement satisfaction and the relationships with various other factors. The cross-sectional results in this study show that the share of respondents reporting  very satisfying  retirements dropped from 60.5 percent in 1998 to 48.6 percent in 2012. On the other hand, the share of respondents reporting  moderately satisfying  and  not at all satisfying  retirements increased from 31.7 percent to 40.9 percent and from 7.9 percent to 10.5 percent, respectively. The longitudinal results from a fixed sample observed over the 15-year period from 1998 to 2012 show similar declines in the share of respondents reporting  very satisfying  retirements and similar increases in the share of respondents reporting  moderately satisfying  retirements. This is in contrast to some of the previous research, which shows that retirement satisfaction increases with age. These trends are not limited to particular economic groups: Both the highest- and lowest-asset quartiles show similar trends. Also, people with and without pension income show similar trends in retirement satisfaction levels. As might be expected, net worth and health status are strongly correlated with retirement satisfaction. Higher net worth is associated with higher levels of satisfaction, and poorer health is associated with lower levels of satisfaction. There is no significant difference in retirement satisfaction levels between men and women. Although this study does not investigate the reasons behind the changes in retirement satisfaction levels, the reported shift in the retirement satisfaction trends raises an important question: Why is the share of very satisfied retirees dropping? Further research to answer this question might provide some important answers.},
	keywords = {Health Conditions and Status, Net Worth and Assets, Pensions, Retirement Planning and Satisfaction},
	author = {Sudipto Banerjee}
}
@article {5885,
	title = {Change in Household Spending After Retirement: Results from a Longitudinal Sample},
	year = {2015},
	institution = {Washington, DC, Employee Benefit Research Institute},
	abstract = {This paper shows how household spending changed in the immediate years following retirement by analyzing the spending patterns of a fixed group of households up to six years after their retirement. Two sources of data are used for this study. First is the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), which is a study of a nationally representative sample of U.S. households with individuals over age 50. The other source of data is the Consumption and Activities Mail Survey (CAMS), which was started in 2001 as a supplement to the HRS. The data show that household spending dropped at the beginning of retirement. In the first two years of retirement, median household spending dropped by 5.5 percent from preretirement spending levels, and by 12.5 percent by the third or fourth year of retirement. But the spending reduction slowed down after the fourth year. Although average spending in retirement fell, a large percentage of households experienced higher spending following retirement. In the first two years of retirement, 45.9 percent of households spent more than what they had spent just before retirement. This declined to 33.4 percent by the sixth year of retirement. Households that spent more in the first two years of retirement were not exclusively high-income households; rather they were distributed similarly across income levels. In the first two years of retirement, 2 in 5 households (39.3 percent) spent less than 80 percent of their preretirement spending. By the sixth year of retirement, a majority (53.1 percent) of households did so. In the first two years of retirement, 28.0 percent of households spent more than 120 percent of their preretirement spending. By the sixth year of retirement, 23.4 percent of households still did so. A very small percentage of the household budget was spent on durable goods. The median household (half above and half below) spent nothing on durables in retirement. Transportation spending showed the highest drop in the first two years of retirement. Median spending on transportation went down by 25.1 percent in the first two years of retirement, although the reduction in subsequent years was small. The median household had a mortgage payment before retirement but none after retirement.},
	keywords = {Consumption and Savings, Income, Net Worth and Assets, Retirement Planning and Satisfaction},
	author = {Sudipto Banerjee}
}
@article {8182,
	title = {A Look at the End-of-Life Financial Situation in America},
	journal = {EBRI Notes},
	volume = {36},
	year = {2015},
	pages = {2-10},
	publisher = {36},
	abstract = {This paper takes a comprehensive look at the financial situation of older Americans at the end of their lives. In particular, it documents the percentage of households with a member who recently died with few or no assets. It also documents the income, debt, home-ownership rates, net home equity, and dependency on Social Security for households that experienced a recent death. Significant findings include that among those who died at ages 85 or above, 20.6 percent had no non-housing assets and 12.2 percent had no assets left. Among singles who died at or above age 85, 24.6 percent had no non-housing assets left and 16.7 percent had no assets left. Data show those who died at earlier ages were generally worse off financially: 29.8 percent of households that lost a member between ages 50 and 64 had no assets left. Households with at least one member who died earlier also had significantly lower income than households with all surviving members. The report shows that among singles who died at ages 85 or above, 9.1 percent had outstanding debt (other than mortgage debt) and the average debt amount for them was  6,368. The report also shows that the importance of Social Security to older households cannot be overstated. For recently deceased singles, it provided at least two-thirds of their household income. Couple households above 75 with deceased members received more than 60 percent of their household income from Social Security. The data for this study come from the University of Michigan s Health and Retirement Study (HRS), which is sponsored by the National Institute on Aging, and is the most comprehensive national survey of older Americans.},
	keywords = {Housing, Net Worth and Assets, Social Security},
	author = {Sudipto Banerjee}
}
@article {8085,
	title = {How Does Household Expenditure Change With Age for Older Americans?},
	journal = {EBRI Notes},
	volume = {35},
	year = {2014},
	pages = {2-11},
	publisher = {35},
	abstract = {Retirement saving involves a lot of unknowns, the most important being not knowing how much money will be needed in retirement. Although it is impossible to predict the retirement expenses of any particular household, the average amounts spent by current retirees can serve as important benchmarks for individual savers as well as for industry experts and policymakers. This paper examines the expenditure pattern of the older segment of the U.S. population. The majority of the households studied here have either reached retirement age or are on the cusp of retirement. The data come from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and the Consumption and Activities Mail Survey (CAMS), which is a supplement of the HRS. CAMS contains detailed spending information on 26 nondurable and six durable categories, and it follows the same group of people over time. Using this information coupled with the income information available in the HRS, this study summarizes the consumption behavior of the American elderly. The primary goal is to examine how overall spending and spending in different categories change with age. Home and home-related expenses is the largest spending category for every age group. Health expenses increase steadily with age. In 2011, households with at least one member between ages 50 and 64 spent 8 percent of their total budget on health items, compared with 19 percent for those age 85 or over. Health-related expenses occupy the second-largest share of total expenditure for those ages 75 or older. The two components of household expenditures that show a declining pattern across age groups are transportation expenses and entertainment expenses. Food and clothing expenses (as a share of total expenditure) remain more or less flat across the different age groups. There is a large increase in spending at the 95th percentile for those ages 90 or older, which can be attributed to very high health care expenses.},
	keywords = {Consumption and Savings, Health Conditions and Status, Healthcare, Net Worth and Assets, Retirement Planning and Satisfaction},
	author = {Sudipto Banerjee}
}
