Retirement seems a long way off, and we need money now, so saving for retirement is hard. Once every three years, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System collects data on household assets and liabilities through the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF). The most recent such survey was conducted in 2010, and the survey results were released to the public in April 2013. The survey presents data on retirement assets, which include defined contribution and Individual Retirement Account (IRA) balances. For married households the mean value per household is $123,968, but the median value is just $10,000. For single households, the mean is $33,585, and the median is $0.
What explains the differences between the two measures of center, both for married and single households?