Wealth Distribution in America: Retirement and Non-Retirement Assets

Wealth distribution in America reflects retirement assets concentrated in families with higher net worth but less concentrated than overall financial resources, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI).

Wealth Distribution in America: Retirement Plans

Here's the picture of wealth distribution in America from the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI):

Assets in individual account retirement plans are concentrated in families with higher net worth, higher family income, higher educational attainment, with older family heads, and with white, non-Hispanic heads.

Overall Financial Assets in the Wealth Distribution in America

Analyses of wealth distribution in America find, though, that retirement plan assets are less concentrated than overall financial assets in many of these same categories. For example, families with white, non-Hispanic heads owned 85.1 percent of active employment-based individual account retirement plan assets, compared with 91.9 percent of all financial assets. Families in the top 10 percent of net worth held 50.0 percent of these active employment-based retirement assets, compared with 72.3 percent of all financial assets.

Affluent Preferences

A Cogent Research’s new In-Retirement Income(TM) 2010 report explores familiarity and interest in retirement income products among today’s affluent retirees and pre-retirees. The report reveals a vacuum for both a winning product and a clearly identified leading provider.

According to the report, today’s affluent pre-retirees and retirees are most interested in managing their retirement income through traditional strategies implemented by themselves or through advisors. Recent innovations such as target payout and absolute return funds arouse very little interest.

Topic: Wealthy Retirees

Subtopics: Concentrations of Wealth • Wealthy Preferences • Lessons Learned