'Protected Income' Users Expect to Depend Less on Social Security: Alliance for Lifetime Income

U.S. consumers who have annuities or defined benefit pension plans seem to expect to depend less heavily on Social Security benefits than other U.S. consumers do.

The Alliance for Lifetime Income has reported that finding in a summary of results from an online survey of 1,015 U.S. adults ages 40 through 79.

The Washington-based group classifies annuity income and pension benefits as “protected income.”

Resources

• The Alliance for Lifetime Income MUG page is available here.
• An article about the Alliance for Lifetime Income forming a think tank is available here.

The survey participants without protected income said they expect to use Social Security benefits to cover about 41% of their essential expenses in retirement.

The survey participants with protected income expect to use Social Security to cover just 29% of the cost of essentials.

The alliance conducted the survey to support an effort to promote a new “M.U.G.” approach to retirement income planning.

The M.U.G. acronym refers to mortgage costs or other housing costs, utility bills, and grocery costs, and it reflects what the alliance sees as core expenses.

The alliance — which is backed by annuity issuers and other retirement services providers — also looked at what survey participants themselves see as essential expenses.