New paper: Retirement Plan Participation: Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) Data, 2006

The Employee Benefit Research Institute has released a new paper by Craig Copeland, entitled Retirement Plan Participation: Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) Data, 2006.

This paper presents results from the latest Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) data on retirement plan participation. SIPP is conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau to examine Americans' participation in various government and private-sector programs that relate to their income and well-being. These latest data are from Topical Module 7 of the 2004 Panel fielded from January-April 2006. The SIPP data have the advantage of providing relatively detailed information on the retirement plans that workers participate in, but they also have the drawback of being fielded only once every three to five years. In comparison, the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey (CPS) provides overall participation levels of workers on an annual basis but does not provide information on the plan types in which the workers are participating.

This paper provides "top-line" results from the latest SIPP data on retirement plan participation. A later paper will provide more detailed breakdowns of these data. The overall participation by all workers and nonagricultural wage and salary workers is presented with breakdowns by workers' age and income. The next section investigates the plan type (defined benefit versus defined contribution) that retirement participants regard as their primary (most important) plan. The last section examines participation in and contributions to salary reduction plans (401(k)-type plans). The workers in this study include those from both the private and the public sectors.

Click here to read the whole paper.