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Table 3 Profiles The Economic And Demographic Factors That

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Table 3 profiles the economic and demographic factors that influence a pre-retiree’s ability to save. The results highlight the impact of income, family structure, race, and education on the accumulation of financial and retirement assets, the pre-retiree’s standard of living as measured by net worth, and the amount of debt being serviced. Households with higher income were expected to accumulate more for retirement, while households with lower income were expected to have limitations in their ability accumulate retirement assets. As hypothesized, as the income level increased, the average amount of financial and retirement account assets increased. While each additional threshold of income represented a significant increase in financial …show more content…

Surprisingly, the difference in net worth between the two groups was only 4.6%. Moreover, single pre-retirees with children experienced the greatest challenge of accumulating financial and retirement account assets. The single cohort with children had only accumulated an average balance of $17,362 in retirement account assets. Within the family structure, single with children appears to be the most vulnerable group in preparing for retirement. Race was expected to factor into determining the impact of consumer debt on the ability of pre-retirees to save for retirement. This study hypothesized that non-White pre-retirees were expected to accumulate less in retirement assets as compared to White households. As hypothesized, White households accumulated significantly higher financial and retirement account assets as compared to the other groups, with an average account balance of $491,208 in financial assets and $111,773 held in retirement accounts. In addition, White households also had the highest average net worth. Table 3 illustrates that Black households accumulated the least amount of financial assets among the races and Hispanic households accumulated the least amount of retirement account assets. While Black households had the lowest average debt balance of any race, the debt to equity ratio was the highest among the groups due to the lower average net worth in comparison to the average debt balance. Morever,

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