A new survey reinforces a growing body of evidence that many Americans are unprepared for retirement.
Thirty-nine percent of non-retirees have given little or no thought to retirement planning, and 31 percent have no retirement savings or pensions, according to the Federal Reserve’s Survey on Household Economics and Decisionmaking.
Due to a lack of savings and planning, many Americans expect to work longer. The survey found that 45 percent of working-age Americans expect to continue working in some form after they retire from their current jobs.
Fifty-five percent of those with incomes below $40,000 a year said they did not plan to retire or would work as long as possible.
The Fed survey results are similar to those from a recent survey by the Pew Charitable Trusts, in which over half of respondents said they would seek out new sources of income after retiring from their current jobs.
The Concord Coalition recently co-hosted a conference on retirement security. Ideas to bolster personal savings included automatically enrolling workers into retirement accounts and reforming tax incentives for retirement saving to benefit more middle- and low-income workers.
External links:
2014 Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking (Federal Reserve)
A Bipartisan Opportunity: Improving Retirement Security
Workers Should Be Realistic in Retirement Planning (Concord)
Many Americans Run Short of Retirement Savings (Concord)
