The American Enterprise institute in washington, d. C. They looked at irs and Social Security data to determine how Many Americans will be ready for retirement. This is two hours. Thank you very much for coming today. I think well get started. Welcome to all the American Enterprise institute. Im andrew biggs. And todays session is titled what can irs data tell us about retirement income. I can imagine a bgrade thriller movie that the tag line said what if everything you knew were wrong. This is a slightly modified version. The tag line might be, what if many of the things you know were wrong and what if many of those were about refirement incomes . Its not something quite as thrilling but something thats actually very, very important. And i think the fact is that much of what we think we know about retirement incomes, the statistics that drive Government Policies regarding Social Security and retirement plans may in fact be wrong. We think we know what retirees incomes are, what their poverty rates are, how dependent they are on Social Security benefits and how much they receive from private retirement plans. Ki pu i can pull some of those statistics from my hid. The poverty rate. Those statistics that i know, based on the data currently ice used. Some of the statistics are wrong because the data theyre based on may be incorrect. The Household Survey data gathered by the government which asks people about their sources of income and retirement systematically understates the income that people receive from retirement pensions, 401 k s, iras, et cetera. We may believe that retirees are becoming dangerously dependent on Social Security benefits of the private retirement plans have failed and retirees today are unable to retain the standard of living they enjoyed prior to retirement. The two studies presented today try to come to a more accurate view of retirement incomes by using more accurate data. In the process, they tell a story that for a policy wonk at least is close to astonishing. Based on government tax records, the income for the typical retiree household is nearly one third higher than we previously thought. Poverty is substantially lower, and the typical retiree has an income very close to what he or sheen joyed she enjoyed prior to retirement. Thats good news. We dont know what the future will bring in light of increasing lifespans and the decadelong shift. And they dont make predictions regarding those future outcomes. But more accurate data do seem to show that americans retirement incomes would need to drop a great deal further before we could consider our retirement system to be in crisis. Im very happy to welcome our two presenters. Our first is peter brady, a senior economist in retirement. Following peter will be joshua mitchell, who is a senior economist at the u. S. Census bureau. Thank you very much for coming and welcome to aei. But both pete and josh are presenting group work. Petes study is coauthor is steven bass of ic and Jessica Holland and kevin pierce. Josh is coauthored with adam bee of the census bureau. We will have discussions. The first discussant will be peter b. Moore from the Federal Reserve board. Our second discussant will be bruce meyer. Thank you both for coming today. Following discussants comments, well allow for brief interchange between participants and turn to your questions. At this point, id like to begin with our presentations. Pete, we have between 20 and 25 minutes, then well go to josh. Thank you very much. Thank you, andrew, and thank you all for showing up today. As andrew already mentioned, this is a joint work and my coauthor is actually sitting in the front row. This paper is a product of the soi joint Statistical Research program. Our paper examines two questions. First, are workers able to maintain their standard of living after they claim Social Security benefits. To answer that question, were going to look at changes in spendable income. Secondly, where do retirees get their income from after they claim Social Security. And to answer that question were going to look at the incidents and amounts of incomes they get from different sources. The reason we undertook this research is that the Social Security system and tax deferral for retirement plans are important components of the u. S. Tax and transference system. They generate most of the income retirees rely on. Its very important for policymakers and administrators to understand how these programs are working. Its technical its technically important