Retirement Assets Total $18.2 Trillion in Second Quarter 2011

Washington, DC, September 30, 2011—Total U.S. retirement assets were $18.2 trillion as of June 30, 2011, up about $70 billion, or 0.4 percent, in the second quarter of 2011. Retirement savings accounted for 37 percent of all household financial assets in the United States at the end of the second quarter of 2011.

U.S. Total Retirement Market
Trillions of dollars, end-of-period, selected periods

^e Data are estimated.
^p Data are preliminary.
Note: For definitions of plan categories, see Table 1 in “The U.S. Retirement Market, Second Quarter 2011.” Components may not add to the total because of rounding.
Sources: Investment Company Institute, Federal Reserve Board, 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 $4.9 trillion at the end of the second quarter of 2011, up 0.7 percent from the end of the first quarter of 2011. Defined contribution (DC) plan assets increased 0.8 percent in the second quarter to $4.7 trillion at quarter-end. Both IRA and DC assets are above their 2007 peak values.  Government pension plans—including Federal, state, and local government plans—held $4.5 trillion in assets as of June 30, 2011, nearly unchanged from March 31, 2011. Private-sector defined benefit (DB) plans held $2.5 trillion in assets at the end of the second quarter of 2011, and annuity reserves outside of retirement accounts accounted for another $1.6 trillion.

Retirement Assets by Type
Billions of dollars, end-of-period, 2011:Q1–2011:Q2

^e Data are estimated.
Sources: Investment Company Institute, Federal Reserve Board, National Association of Government Defined Contribution Administrators, American Council of Life Insurers, and Internal Revenue Service Statistics of Income Division

Defined Contribution Plans

Americans held $4.7 trillion in all employer-based DC retirement plans on June 30, 2011, of which $3.2 trillion was held in 401(k) plans. Mutual funds managed $2.6 trillion, or 56 percent, of assets held in 401(k), 403(b), and other DC plans at the end of June.

401(k) Plan Assets
of dollars, end-of-period, selected periods

Note: Components may not add to the total because of rounding.
Sources: Investment Company Institute, Federal Reserve Board, and Department of Labor

Individual Retirement Accounts

IRAs held $4.9 trillion in assets at the end of the second quarter of 2011. Forty-seven percent of IRA assets, or $2.3 trillion, was invested in mutual funds.

IRA Market Assets
Billions of dollars, end-of-period, selected periods

^e Data are estimated.
^p Data are preliminary.
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

Assets in target date mutual funds continued to grow primarily due to ongoing net inflows. As of June 30, 2011, target date mutual fund assets totaled $382 billion, an increase of $12 billion, or 3.2 percent, in the second quarter. Retirement accounts held the bulk of target date mutual fund assets: 92 percent of target date mutual fund assets was held through DC plans and IRAs.

Target Date Mutual Fund Assets
Billions of dollars, end-of-period, selected periods

Note: Components may not add to the total because of rounding.
Source: Investment Company Institute

Technical Notes

The Investment Company Institute’s total retirement market estimates reflect revisions to previously published data. In particular, ICI made calendar-year adjustments to reported U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) Form 5500 data for the period 1999 to 2008. Published DOL tabulations of Form 5500 data are reported on a plan-year—rather than calendar-year—basis. This change resulted in revisions to DC plan assets (both the “401(k)” and the “other DC” categories) and private-sector DB plan assets from 1999 forward. For more details on the revisions, see the Methodology page in the full release.

The reported assets of federal pension plans for the second quarter of 2011 are adjusted for U.S. Treasury financing activities undertaken after the legal limit on federal government borrowing was reached. These actions temporarily reduced the amount of Treasury securities reported on the balance sheet of the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund.

The quarterly retirement data tables are available at “The U.S. Retirement Market, Second Quarter 2011.”