Older persons today appear more likely to enter retirement in debt than in past decades, according to a working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research. The percentage of people age 56 to 61 arriving at retirement with debt rose from 64 percent, for those born from 1931 to 1941, to 71 percent, among those born from 1948 to 1953.
Additionally, the value of debt held rose sharply over time. While the median amount of debt in the 1931-1941 group was about $6,800, it more than quadrupled among war babies born between 1942 and 1947, and almost quintupled among the 1948-1953 group.
The paper also finds that the debt distribution appears to have changed across cohorts. In the oldest group, the top quartile of the debt distribution held around $51,000 in debt. But for the two younger cohorts, this same quartile of the population held more than double ($106,000) and almost triple ($146,800) that amount.
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