Data & Research December 9, 2006

Study: Pre-Retiree ‘Affluent’ Americans Still Spending Money

While the top two income tiers of Americans approaching retirement have comparable assets, those classified in a new study as affluent are still focused on accumulating assets and are more likely to need their money for short-term life events.
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That was a key conclusion of a new study prepared for the Boston-based Retirement Income Industry Association (RIIA), according to a news release from the organization, which asserts that retirees most need income generation products to help them have enough to live out their retirement years.

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The RIIA news release said the study found that affluent pre-retiree Americans’ assets are also widely distributed over a variety of financial institutions.

The study broke down American households into: Wealthy (Top 5%), Affluent (Next 15%), Mass Market (Middle 50%), Marginal (Last 30%), and life stages: Starters, Builders, Pre-Retirees and Retirees.

The study examined household assets and income, institutions where the assets are held, the kinds of retirement products being used, household decisionmaking and use of financial advisers and selected financial attitudes toward investing, Social Security and retirement.

The report was prepared by the Consumer Financial Decisions (CFD) group of SRI Consulting Business Intelligence (SRIC-BI) and Turner Consulting LLC to analyze the comprehensive household data in SRIC-BI’s MacroMonitor for a series of reports including the newly released offering.

This study is offered free to RIIA members while non-RIIA members may purchase copies by going to www.riia-usa.org for more information.

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