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Over the past 15 years, the retirement prospects of the baby-boom generation (people born from 1946 to 1964) have become a source of public concern. Some experts contend that low saving by boomers could limit economic growth in the United States and compound the financial pressures that face government programs such as Social Security and Medicare. This Congressional Budget Office (CBO) study--prepared at the request of the Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee--updates and expands on a 1993 CBO report on the retirement preparedness of boomers. It places the baby-boom retirement issue in historical and policy context, describes the methodologies used to analyze that issue, reviews numerous studies of retirement preparedness that have been published since 1993, and draws general conclusions from their findings.

Robert Shackleton of CBO's Macroeconomic Analysis Division wrote this study. Paul Burnham, Paul Cullinan, Robert Dennis, Philip Ellis, Tracy Foertsch, Peter Fontaine, Douglas Hamilton, Arlene Holen, David Koitz, Kim Kowalewski, Mark Lasky, Benjamin Page, Amrita Palriwala, Kathy Ruffing, John Sabelhaus, Kurt Seibert, Ralph Smith, John Sturrock, David Weiner, Roberton Williams, and Thomas Woodward of CBO provided valuable comments and assistance, as did James Poterba of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Sharmila Choudhury of the Social Security Administration. Many authors of the studies reviewed or cited in this report also provided helpful comments, including John Ameriks, Alan Auerbach, B. Douglas Bernheim, Richard Easterlin, William Gale, John Gist, Alan Gustman, Laurence Kotlikoff, Joyce Manchester, Charles Manski, Olivia Mitchell, Catherine Montalto, Peter Svensson, Christian Weller, and Edward Wolff.

Christian Spoor edited the study, and Christine Bogusz proofread it. Maureen Costantino produced the cover, Lenny Skutnik printed the initial copies of the report, and Annette Kalicki prepared the electronic versions for CBO's Web site.

Douglas Holtz-Eakin
Director
November 2003