03/09/10 Stockholm, Sweden – If you’re worried about retirement you’re not alone. A new survey out today shows that Americans are increasingly ill-prepared for retirement. US Workers are delaying their planned career end dates to instead focus on building just a basic nest egg.
According to CNNMoney.com:
“The percentage of workers who said they have less than $10,000 in savings grew to 43% in 2010, from 39% in 2009, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute’s annual Retirement Confidence Survey. That excludes the value of primary homes and defined-benefit pension plans.
“Workers who said they had less than $1,000 jumped to 27%, from 20% in 2009.
“Confidence in ability to save enough for a comfortable retirement hovered at 16% of respondents, the second lowest point in the 20-year history of the survey…
“…The percentage of workers who said they have saved for retirement fell to 69%, from 75% in 2009.”
The fact that only 16 percent of respondents believe they are saving enough for a comfortable retirement, a 20-year low, is an especially bad sign. It’s worse still if you consider that many of these workers may also believe they have some underlying financial support from two of the US government’s most egregious unfunded liabilities: Social Security and Medicare. These days, the nation’s retirement safety net is looking more threadbare than ever.
For more details visit CNNMoney.com’s coverage of how 43 percent of surveyed US workers and retirees have less than $10k for retirement.
Best,
Rocky Vega,
The Daily Reckoning
Rocky Vega
Rocky Vega is publisher of The Daily Reckoning. Previously, he was founding publisher of UrbanTurf and RFID Update, which he operated from Brazil, Chile, and Puerto Rico, and associate publisher of FierceFinance. He specialized in direct marketing at MBI, facilitated MIT Sloan School of Management programs, and has been featured on CBS. Vega graduated with honors from Harvard University, where he was on the board of Let’s Go Publications and directed business programs involving McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, and Harvard Business School faculty. He is also enrolled at the Stockholm School of Economics.
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that’s scary
hope i’m ok when i retire.
The survey covers workers 25 years and older. I would imagine 25 year old workers would have less retirement savings than a 65 year old worker, thus pulling down the average. A survey of just workers (say) 55 and older would make more sense.