IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwpla/0403003.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Wealth Inequality Among Older Americans

Author

Listed:
  • James P. Smith

    (RAND)

Abstract

Using the AHEAD study, this article examines the wealth distribution among American househods with a member at least 70 years old. Household wealth is quite unevenly distributed among older American households. Those households in the top 10th percentile of the wealth distribution have 2,500 times as much wealth as those at the lowest 10th percent. This sharp wealth disparity relative to income dispersion is the dominant reason why older minority households have accumulated so little wealth compared to White households. Wealth varies by a factor of seven to one when both spouses are in poor health compared to when they say that they are in excellent health. Finally, AHEAD data on bequest intentions suggest a bifurcated bequest motive. Most older households plan to bequeath a modest financial inheritance, but about one-quarter expect to leave inheritances worth $100,000 or more.

Suggested Citation

  • James P. Smith, 2004. "Wealth Inequality Among Older Americans," Labor and Demography 0403003, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpla:0403003
    Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 8. The Journals of Gerontology, Volume 52B, May 1997, pp. 74-81
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/lab/papers/0403/0403003.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kanika Kapur & Jeannette A. Rogowski & Vicki A. Freedman & Steven L. Wickstrom & John L. Adams & Jose J. Escarce, 2004. "Socioeconomic Status and Medical Care Expenditures in Medicare Managed Care," NBER Working Papers 10757, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Erik Hurst, 2004. "Grasshoppers, Ants and Pre-Retirement Wealth: A Test of Permanent Income Consumers," Working Papers wp088, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    3. repec:max:cprpbr:008 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Florian Heiss & Michael Hurd & Axel Borsch-Supan, 2003. "Healthy, Wealthy, and Knowing Where to Live: Predicted Trajectories of Health, Wealth and Living Arrangements Among the Oldest Old," NBER Working Papers 9897, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Douglas Holtz-Eakin & John W. R. Phillips & Harvey S. Rosen, 2001. "Estate Taxes, Life Insurance, And Small Business," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(1), pages 52-63, February.
    6. Michael Hurd & Julie Zissimopoulos, 2003. "Saving for Retirement: Wage Growth and Unexpected Events," Working Papers wp045, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    7. Erik Hurst, 2003. "Grasshoppers, Ants, and Pre-Retirement Wealth: A Test of Permanent Income," NBER Working Papers 10098, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Yoon Lee & Jean Lown & Deanna Sharpe, 2007. "Predictors of Holding Consumer and Mortgage Debt among Older Americans," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 28(2), pages 305-320, June.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J - Labor and Demographic Economics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpla:0403003. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: EconWPA (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.