Fun with Data

[Independent]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dunkelblau I think the numbers from the 2013 Fed Survey of Consumer Finances chartbook https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/scfindex.htm suggest a significantly lower median retiree income. The table on Page #22 shows median pretax family income as 56.8k for 'employee', 70.8k for 'self-employed', 29.9k for 'retired' and 25.4k for 'other/not working'. No age or family size restriction as far as I can tell. The difference probably involves exactly what is and isn't included, I wonder what that may be.

Intriguing. But, when I followed your link, I got the SCF homepage. It seems that you are referencing a particular report. Can you help me out?

[dunkelblau]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Independent Intriguing. But, when I followed your link, I got the SCF homepage. It seems that you are referencing a particular report. Can you help me out?

Sorry, it's the "SCF Chartbook" File Type PDF -- the bottom link in that first table (on my system it's >7MB not 3.6MB). The big files I presume must be source data in Excel/SAS/STATA or flat ASCII text. I just noticed the Codebook link in the documentation table, and it appears that the raw data has way more detail than what we see in these summaries, so I don't think this can be an easy dig.

[Independent]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dunkelblau Sorry, it's the "SCF Chartbook" File Type PDF -- the bottom link in that first table (on my system it's >7MB not 3.6MB). The big files I presume must be source data in Excel/SAS/STATA or flat ASCII text. I just noticed the Codebook link in the documentation table, and it appears that the raw data has way more detail than what we see in these summaries, so I don't think this can be an easy dig.

Thanks. I've got no ideas. The SCF charts are for "families with holdings", so if anything they should be higher than CPS. And, the SCF includes realized capital gains, the CPS doesn't.

I notice the that gap between mean and median is greater than the CPS. That would be consistent with picking up capital gains, but the gap is large.

So, I got nothin.

[dunkelblau]

Thanks, I stumbled across a source that explains some of the nuances in measuring retirement income here--
Income of Today’s Older Adults | Pension Rights Center
They use three kinds of demographic units: individuals with median at 23K, households at 38.5K, and 'aged units' at 30K. This last item is something I hadn't heard of and an explanation is provided in a link. I wonder whether SCF defined family income along the lines of 'aged units'?

[audreyh1]

I like being informed, so I appreciate the OP.

[Independent]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dunkelblau Thanks, I stumbled across a source that explains some of the nuances in measuring retirement income here-- Income of Today’s Older Adults | Pension Rights Center They use three kinds of demographic units: individuals with median at 23K, households at 38.5K, and 'aged units' at 30K. This last item is something I hadn't heard of and an explanation is provided in a link. I wonder whether SCF defined family income along the lines of 'aged units'?

Okay.

The $38.5k matches my number for households from the 2015 Current Population Survey.

The $23k is about a thousand different from what I get if I use the CPS Table Creator and specify "persons", though I can match the number exactly using the CPS prepared reports and downloading the 65+ table here: https://www.census.gov/data/tables/t...c/pinc-08.html

The "units" number comes from a SSA report, and it uses CPS data as its source. https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/stat...014/about.html
They may be treating each married couple and each single person as one "unit", then finding the median of them. I could see how that would pull the median down if they avoided the incomes of other persons in the household.

The Fed's Survey of Consumer Finances uses their own survey, but may use the same approach.

I don't like blending single people and married couples into one number, but that's often what I see. Getting away from that was one of the reasons I did the OP.

[Alan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by audreyh1 I like being informed, so I appreciate the OP.

+1

Good post, interesting thread.

[Al18]

Thanks for posting - interesting.

For another data point, I suggest checking mean/median family income in your state compared to your income.

[Independent]

Just because I can ...

I looked at sources of income, by income decile, for my married couples, in two person households, over age 65, with no earned income:

Social Security	8,100	19,900	24,100	26,700	28,600	29,500	31,200	30,300	32,900	32,100
Pensions	300	400	1,500	2,500	5,300	9,200	15,800	24,500	35,800	58,000
Qualified Withdrawals	100	100	200	600	1,100	2,100	2,700	3,100	4,700	14,300
Non-Qual Inv Income	300	400	400	1,100	1,600	2,200	2,800	5,000	10,300	34,700
Other	1,500	500	300	400	700	1,400	1,400	3,500	4,500	12,000
---------	---------	---------	---------	---------	---------	---------	---------	---------	---------	---------
Total	10,200	21,300	26,500	31,400	37,300	44,400	53,900	66,500	88,200	151,100

The numbers are mean dollars within deciles.

The striking thing to me is the importance of Social Security to everyone except the top couple deciles. It's interesting that the non-qual investment income in the top decile exceeds the total in that line for all the other nine deciles combined. And, of course, pensions are still very important for current retirees.

And, because I can, here's a some more detail:

Social Security	8,100	19,900	24,100	26,700	28,600	29,500	31,200	30,300	32,900	32,100
Private Pensions	200	200	600	1,300	3,300	4,900	8,500	12,300	15,700	23,100
State and Local Pensions	-	100	200	200	900	2,000	3,600	6,700	12,400	19,700
Federal Pensions	-	100	200	500	500	1,300	1,300	2,200	3,800	10,700
Veterans Benefits & Military Pens	100	-	500	500	600	1,100	2,300	3,300	4,000	4,400
Regular Qualified Withdrawals	100	-	100	400	800	1,400	1,700	1,900	3,400	11,800
Other Qualified Withdrawals	-	100	-	200	300	800	1,000	1,200	1,300	2,500
Interest	200	300	200	500	500	800	1,300	2,000	4,300	11,100
Dividends	100	200	100	300	600	800	1,100	2,200	3,400	12,300
Rental Income	-	-	100	300	500	500	400	800	2,600	11,300
Annuities	100	-	200	300	300	900	800	1,800	2,800	4,600
Supp Security Income	1,200	300	100	100	200	-	100	-	100	-
Disability & Survivor	100	100	100	-	100	400	400	1,400	900	5,300
Not Coded	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	100	600	1,400
Other	100	-	100	-	100	-	200	200	100	700
---------	---------	---------	---------	---------	---------	---------	---------	---------	---------	---------
Total	10,200	21,300	26,500	31,400	37,300	44,400	53,900	66,500	88,200	151,100

(I'd appreciate some advice on a quick way to right-adjust those numbers.)

[GrayHare]

Interesting that interest and dividends are close amounts. Here it's way more dividends than interest. Other people must have much more in banks and CDs.

[sengsational]

Just added this to an old thread about putting tables into posts:
http://www.early-retirement.org/foru...ml#post1900246

Basically, you put [ right ] and [ /right ] around your numbers.

[youbet]

Quote:

Originally Posted by GrayHare Interesting that interest and dividends are close amounts. Here it's way more dividends than interest. Other people must have much more in banks and CDs.

Sometimes this is caused by thinking of bond and bond fund interest as "dividends."

[Independent]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sengsational Just added this to an old thread about putting tables into posts: http://www.early-retirement.org/foru...ml#post1900246 Basically, you put [ right ] and [ /right ] around your numbers.

Thanks for the response. I think that requires tagging each number individually. I was hoping for something that would involve one command for the whole table.

(but, maybe I'm not understanding)

[ExFlyBoy5]

Good work, Independent! I am an avid number cruncher and as much as I am *not* representative of the "Jone's", I am always curious as to what story is told by these numbers.

[Independent]

Quote:

Originally Posted by youbet Sometimes this is caused by thinking of bond and bond fund interest as "dividends."

This is a possibility. The interest question is:

Item 66b - Did... own any interest
earning accounts, funds, savings bonds,
T-notes, IRAs, CDs, or other investments
which pay interest?

and the dividend question is:

Item 67b - Did ... own any shares of stock
or any mutual fund shares?


It's possible there are instructions that clarify "mutual funds that own bonds", but I don't know where to look for that.

[CUinFl]

Great post. Love the data

[Koolau]

Thanks for a great post. Almost against my will I find myself comparing to others. Perhaps it's the human condition. YMMV