Pandemic-Era Debt Weakened Retirement Readiness

Driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, many households have experienced financial shocks over the past several years due to unemployment, working-hour cuts, furloughs and drops in compensation.

Such shocks, combined with insufficient emergency savings, have constrained their balance sheets — and jeopardized their retirement preparedness.

This is according to a new analysis set to be published in the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards’ Financial Planning Review. The forthcoming paper, written by contributing researchers Andrea Hasler, Annamaria Lusardi and Olivia S. Mitchell, details which U.S. population subgroups report feeling most debt-constrained, how this perception was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and how it relates to financial literacy and retirement readiness.

The researchers say their analysis shows that, prior to and during the pandemic, one in three American adults felt constrained by their debt. The percentage was higher among what the authors refer to as “vulnerable” subgroups, including Black and Hispanic individuals, those lacking a bachelor’s degree, those with lower incomes and those with low levels of financial literacy.

According to the trio, being debt-constrained also has negative long-term financial consequences, particularly when it comes to planning and saving for retirement. Ultimately, the authors explain, financial literacy has a strong connection to both debt and retirement money management, “confirming that financial knowledge is essential if people are to be able to manage their debt and build financial well-being.”

Setting Up the Analysis

As the researchers explain, the key underlying data for the new analysis stems from the TIAA Institute-Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center Personal Finance Index, which is a survey tool designed to measure Americans’ knowledge and understanding of the factors leading to sound financial decision-making and effective management of personal finances.

The index itself is based on a repeating, nationally representative survey that was first fielded in 2017. For their present study, the researchers analyzed and compared the 2020 and 2021 data waves, both of which were collected in January of their respective years. Accordingly, this design permits the researchers to compare data collected right before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and then again 10 months into the crisis.

Notably, Black and Hispanic Americans were oversampled in 2021, permitting Hasler, Lusardi and Mitchell to analyze these historically underrepresented groups in finer detail, though both surveys included statistical weights to generate nationally representative results.

From this starting point, the researchers examine how people reported that debt has constrained their progress toward personal finance goals, and they also study responses to questions asking about late debt payments — a clear indicator of debt being burdensome for people’s personal finances.

According to the researchers, this late-payment question is additionally useful as a robustness check on the debt-constraint measure, though they admit they cannot perfectly compare results over time, as the wording of the questions in 2020 and 2021 changed somewhat.

Running the Numbers

The analysis shows that, in 2021, almost one-third of respondents indicated that they felt debt-constrained, and 22% reported being late on their debt payments. By comparison, in early 2020, prior to the pandemic’s full-fledged arrival in the U.S., the same percentage of the U.S. population stated it felt debt-constrained, but only 13% of respondents reported being late on their debt payments.

Hasler, Lusardi and Mitchell suggest these results show that debt and debt management is not a short-term issue facing many Americans.

“Rather, it has been a concern for some time,” they write. “The changed wording of the late debt payment question explains why so many answered the 2021 question positively, as it included not only those who were late on loan payments (similar to 2020), but also people in arrears on their bills.”

Next, the researchers turn to an investigation of the long-term consequences of debt by examining two indicators of retirement readiness, including retirement planning and saving for retirement. According to the authors, it is important to understand retirement readiness for three reasons.

First, retirement planning is a strong predictor of wealth. Second, given the fact that the income replacement rates provided by Social Security are far less than 100% for most retirees, workers today must set aside private savings to ensure their financial security after they stop working. Accordingly, a lack of retirement wealth may be a leading indicator of financial fragility in retirement. Third, people who plan for retirement also tend to be savvier about their life cycle financial resources.