With the decline of defined benefit (DB) pension plans, there has been some renewed interest in providing other annuity income options to American workers, but demand for annuities has remained low in the United States. To develop future annuity income solutions, it is important to understand the public’s preferences for such products. This report uses a unique experiment in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to assess the effect of savings on the preference for immediate annuities (which begin paying out a regular stream of income as soon as they are purchased). Results show that people at the bottom- and top-ends of the savings distribution (those with the least and most assets) are more likely to buy annuities than people in the middle of the savings distribution. Savings was shown to have a large positive effect on preference for annuities only for those in the highest savings category. >> Download PDF