Release: Quarterly Retirement Market Data
Retirement Assets Total $37.4 Trillion in Third Quarter 2021
Washington, DC; December 16, 2021 - Total US retirement assets were $37.4 trillion as of September 30, 2021, down 0.5 percent from June 30, 2021. Retirement assets accounted for 33 percent of all household financial assets in the United States at the end of September 2021.
US Total Retirement Market Assets
Trillions of dollars, end-of-period, selected periods
e Data are estimated.
Note: For definitions of plan categories, see Table 1 in “The US Retirement Market, Third Quarter 2021.” Components may not add to the total because of rounding.
Sources: Investment Company Institute, Federal Reserve Board, Department of Labor, National Association of Government Defined Contribution Administrators, American Council of Life Insurers, and Internal Revenue Service Statistics of Income Division
Assets in individual retirement accounts (IRAs) totaled $13.2 trillion at the end of the third quarter of 2021, a decrease of 0.6 percent from the end of the second quarter of 2021. Defined contribution (DC) plan assets were $10.4 trillion at the end of the third quarter, down 0.8 percent from June 30, 2021. Government defined benefit (DB) plans— including federal, state, and local government plans—held $7.6 trillion in assets as of the end of September 2021, a 0.3 percent increase from the end of June 2021. Private-sector DB plans held $3.7 trillion in assets at the end of the third quarter of 2021, and annuity reserves outside of retirement accounts accounted for another $2.5 trillion.
Retirement Assets by Type
Billions of dollars, end-of-period, 2021:Q2–2021:Q3
e Data are estimated.
Sources: Investment Company Institute and Federal Reserve Board
Defined Contribution Plans
Americans held $10.4 trillion in all employer-based DC retirement plans on September 30, 2021, of which $7.3 trillion was held in 401(k) plans. In addition to 401(k) plans, at the end of the third quarter, $660 billion was held in other private-sector DC plans, $1.2 trillion in 403(b) plans, $408 billion in 457 plans, and $797 billion in the Federal Employees Retirement System’s Thrift Savings Plan (TSP). Mutual funds managed $4.8 trillion, or 65 percent, of assets held in 401(k) plans at the end of September 2021. With $2.8 trillion, equity funds were the most common type of funds held in 401(k) plans, followed by $1.3 trillion in hybrid funds, which include target date funds.
401(k) Plan Assets
Billions of dollars, end-of-period, selected periods
Note: Components may not add to the total because of rounding.
Sources: Investment Company Institute and Department of Labor
Individual Retirement Accounts
IRAs held $13.2 trillion in assets at the end of the third quarter of 2021. Forty-five percent of IRA assets, or $5.9 trillion, was invested in mutual funds. With $3.4 trillion, equity funds were the most common type of funds held in IRAs, followed by $1.1 trillion in hybrid funds.
IRA Market Assets
Billions of dollars, end-of-period, selected periods
e Data are estimated.
Note: Components may not add to the total because of rounding.
Sources: Investment Company Institute, Federal Reserve Board, American Council of Life Insurers, and Internal Revenue Service Statistics of Income Division
Other Developments
Retirement entitlements include both retirement assets and the unfunded liabilities of DB plans. Under a DB plan, employees accrue benefits to which they are legally entitled and which represent assets to US households and liabilities to plans. To the extent that pension plan assets are insufficient to cover accrued benefit entitlements, a DB pension plan has a claim on the plan sponsor.
As of September 30, 2021, total US retirement entitlements were $43.0 trillion, including $37.4 trillion of retirement assets and another $5.7 trillion of unfunded liabilities. Including both retirement assets and unfunded liabilities, retirement entitlements accounted for 38 percent of the financial assets of all US households at the end of September.
Unfunded liabilities are a larger issue for government DB plans than for private-sector DB plans. As of the end of the third quarter of 2021, unfunded liabilities were 41 percent of benefit entitlements for state and local government DB plans, 45 percent of benefit entitlements for federal government DB plans, and 3 percent of benefit entitlements for private-sector DB plans.
US Total Retirement Entitlements
Trillions of dollars, end-of-period, 2021:Q3
e Data are estimated.
Note: For definitions of categories, see Tables 1 and 2 in "The US Retirement Market, Third Quarter 2021." Components may not add to the total because of rounding.
Sources: Investment Company Institute and Federal Reserve Board
The quarterly retirement data tables are available at “The US Retirement Market, Third Quarter 2021.”
Technical Notes
The Investment Company Institute’s total retirement market estimates reflect revisions to previously published estimates.
The latest estimates incorporate newly available data on 2019 flows and year-end 2019 assets for 401(k) plans, other private-sector DC plans, and private-sector DB plans from the US Department of Labor Form 5500 microdata. The latest retirement market estimates also incorporate revisions to Federal Reserve Board estimates of state and local government DB plan assets and private-sector DB plan asset growth.
Incorporation of the newly available information resulted in upward revisions to previously published estimates of 401(k) plan and other private-sector DC plan assets beginning in the first quarter of 2019 and upward revisions to state and local government DB plan assets beginning in the first quarter of 2021. The pattern of revisions to private-sector DB plan assets was more complex, with downward revisions from the second quarter of 2019 through the first quarter of 2020 followed by upward revisions starting in the second quarter of 2020.