“With the U.S. Senate Special Commi ttee on Aging holding a hearing [March 12] on “Bridging the Gap: How Prepared are Americans for Retirement ?” the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) is re-posting recent findings that the aggregate national retirement savings deficit is about $4.13 trillion for all U.S. households where the head of the household is between 25 and 64, inclusive. As earlier research has shown, maintaining current benef it levels of Social Security benefits is critical to many Americans’ retirement security. The baseline EBRI national retirement savings deficit estimate is based on current-law Social Security benefits. With the program’s Old-Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance (OASDI) trust fund projected to be exhausted by 2033, EBRI estimates the retirement deficitwill increase to $4.38 trillion at that time if no additional funding is provided and a pro rata reduction in Social Security benefits is allowed to take effect. To illustrate just how important Social Security is to Americans’ ability to afford retirement, EBRI also estimates that if the program were to be eliminated this year, the aggregate national retirement deficit would increase by nearly 90 percent, to $7.87 trillion. The February 2015 EBRI Issue Brief published the latest results from its proprietary Retirement Savings Projection Model (RSPM®), and estimates the size of the deficits that households are simulated to generate in retirement, or Retirement Savings Shortfalls (RSS). The full press release, originally published Feb. 17, is here. The complete February EBRI Issue Brief is online at www.ebri.org“