My response to this post is on the Hope Street Group blog:

In a nutshell, though:

I found it hard to believe that in an era when the personal savings rate has dipped below the zero mark that most Americans are in the clear when it comes to their retirement savings. Which Americans are we talking about here? Baby boomers? Those who have already retired? Is the hysteria about the imminent retirement crisis mere political posturing?

A look at the study's fine print reveals the key to authors' assertions: they focus on households whose family members were between the ages of 51-61 in 1992. Not only is that age group an exceedingly narrow cohort, but it is also a generation of Americans who could presumably count on what is these days the equivalent of the last unicorn-fully funded employer-based pension plans. If I were to conjecture further, these Americans, who are currently between the ages of 67-77, were probably not subjected to the same methodical stripping away of the social safety net, income volatility and rising health care costs that are today so impacting younger Americans' ability to save.

Sad to say, but it looks like we're not in the clear yet when it comes to retirement savings. To say otherwise is misguided at best and irresponsible at worst.

You've mentioned exactly the problems I had with this article--besides its vagueness. The article didn't mention the trends in the types of pensions held by Americans, nor their percentages. Today's incipient retiree not only holds a pension which has less rich benefits than the comparable cohort of 15 years ago--as you point out--tomorrow's retiree is facing cutbacks in Social Security (either diminished benefits, more heavily taxed benefits, delayed retirement ages to qualify for benefits, and most pressing, inflation in food and housing costs), and Medicare down the road, s/he has also seen whittled down retirement benefits because of corporate underfunding. The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation is running out of money, having already spent on bailing out the likes of the airlines and automobile manufacturers. The horizon looks cloudy, indeed. Already 30% of people 65-69 have chosen to opt out of retirement--up nearly double from 1985, as I pointed out in my last top-post.

It was a feckless article, indeed. There is much to worry about. For some examples, COLAs are tied to unrealistic accounts of inflation, and the future SS recipient will NOT KEEP UP with inflation in basic necessities. Many doctors are no longer admitting new Medicare patients. Taxes will probably be raised after the orgy of deficits of the Bush administration, and one source will be Social Security.