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Will the real retirement crisis please stand up?

These life-cycle models often find that there is a much smaller retirement crisis than suggested by a focus on replacing preretirement income. For example, one 2008 study—“Are All Americans Saving ‘Optimally’ for Retirement,” by John Karl Scholz and Ananth Seshadri of the University of Wisconsin-Madison—found that only 4% of households had a net worth that was below their optimal levels. The NRRI at the time was 44%.