What precisely is the author's point, and more importantly, where are the author's figures?

The cited Scholz study references 1992 income and wealth figures, and so is pretty much out of date.

To say that the problem of American workers' undersaving has been exaggerated in some quarters is not equivalent to saying that there is not a problem.

The fact remains that a small fraction of Americans have a defined benefit retirement plan, and barely a majority have any significant retirement assets at all. The Scholz study gamely includes in the latter "Social Security Wealth", which would be a bad joke to future generations who are looking at guaranteed benefit cuts and/or delayed retirements. Of course, if we delay retirement long enough, there would be no 'retirement problem'.

As for Kotlikoff being sanguine about private saving, I've read that the median net worth of American households including pension assets and home equity--but not the fatuous 'Social Security Wealth'-- is around $100,000. This hardly makes me sanguine.

The author asks, "Should we be more relaxed about personal pensions? It's hard to be sure."

He must be tongue in cheek asking this question, as he has only cited polyannas in his article. But no:

"Some people do suffer impoverished retirements, but they tend to fall into two categories: those who were poor for most of their lives, anyway, and those who unexpectedly lost their jobs or their health in their 50s. In neither case is "more saving" the answer to the problem."

Bottom line: don't worry if you're middle class or better and don't suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. We have defined away the problem.

my mom retired with SSN, a paid off house, and about 70k. She's been fine for about 10 years now. The key seems to be if you develop an expensive medical problem. When that happens, it doesn't seem to matter how much you have saved.

What is the value of her paid off house? Clearly, she's already well above the median net worth. It takes some ingenuity to survive on SS and Medicare alone, but medical treatments--even the kind that Medicare doesn't pay for--might be had overseas for cheap. Drugs can slowly eat away at your net worth.

I don't think your mom will ever be out on the street.

thank you genedio for an excellent top post.

the only thats going down in price is the crack that author tim harford is smoking.

your reply was detailed and accurate

my own riposte to harford - if you line up 100 senior citizens and ask them "did you save too much for retirement" (or better yet, would you have saved more, knowning what you know now?") i betcha more than 90% of would disagree with harford's premise

Thanks for the praise. It's good we have kind word for each other every now and then.