Pension coverage is a major problem in the private sector, according to a brief by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.
The center addressed recent questioning by commentators as to whether pension coverage is a serious matter.
The brief was written by Alicia Munnell, director of the CRR and the Peter F. Drucker Professor of Management Sciences at Boston College's Carroll School of Management, and Dina Bleckman, a research associate at the CRR.
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They said that those who have questioned the pension problem relied on data from the government's National Compensation Survey suggesting that 80 percent of employees have access to a plan.
The authors noted that the figure refers to access, not participation, and to full-time workers in both the public and private sectors.
They instead reviewed four household surveys—the Current Population Survey, the Survey of Income and Program Participation, the Survey of Consumer Finances, and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics—and one employer survey—the National Compensation Survey.
"Taking all the surveys and adjustments into account, our best estimate is that, at any given point, only about half of private sector wage and salary workers age 25-64 participate in a plan.
They also found that about 65 percent may have access to a plan through their current employer.
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