A study, largely overlooked, from three Ivy League researchersfinds that almost half of Americans die owning less than$10,000.

The study's authors, James Poterba of MIT, Steven Venti ofDartmouth and David Wise of Harvard, wrote in February that theyfound “a substantial fraction of persons die with virtually nofinancial assets—46.1% with less than $10,000—and many of thesehouseholds also have no housing wealth and rely almost entirely onSocial Security benefits for support.”

In “Were They Prepared For Retirement?,” theauthors note that, based on a replacement rate comparison, many ofthese households are deemed to be well-prepared for retirement, inthe sense that their income in their final years was about equal totheir income in their late 50s or early 60s.

“Yet with such low asset levels, they would have little capacityto pay for unanticipated needs such as health expenses or otherfinancial shocks or to pay for entertainment, travel, or otheractivities. This raises a question of whether the replacement ratiois a sufficient statistic for the 'adequacy' of retirementpreparation.”

The likelihood that those in poor health will be in poverty ismuch greater than those in good health, the authors observe.However, total income in the last year of life is, on average,only about 50% of income in the preretirement years.

“These persons balance on only one leg of the oft toutedthree-legged stool that is said to provide retirementsupport—Social Security, pension benefits and personal saving. Ifthe one leg is judged inadequate it raises the question of how tostrengthen the other legs, which in turn may, for example, increaseinterest in the spread of 401(k)-like plans to low-wage workers infirms with high turnover.”

The study was released by the nonpartisan National Bureau ofEconomic Research, an organization generally known for calling thebeginning and end of economic recessions.

This article was originally posted at AdvisorOne.com, a sister siteof Credit Union Times.