Americans remain uneasy about their retirement finances despite a brightening economic outlook — perhaps because it is dawning on them just how much they have to save, a long-running survey finds.
The percentage of workers who are confident about having enough money for a “comfortable” retirement is unchanged from the record lows of 2011, the survey from the Employee Benefit Research Institute found.
More than half express some level of confidence, but 21 percent are “not too” confident and 28 percent are “not at all” confident — the highest level of people not at all confident in the 23 years of the Retirement Confidence Survey. The survey is sponsored by the institute and Mathew Greenwald Associates, and financed by roughly two dozen businesses and nonprofit groups.
The survey was conducted in January using 20-minute telephone interviews with 1,003 adult workers and 251 retirees. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points.
It may be that the reality of difficult savings ahead is dawning.
A “striking” number of workers cite large targets when asked how much they will need to save to ensure a financially secure retirement, the survey found. Twenty percent said they needed to save between 20 and 29 percent of their income, and nearly a fourth said they needed to save 30 percent or more. But only about half said they had tried to formally calculate how much they will need to save to retire comfortably; the rest essentially guessed.
“Aggressive as those savings targets appear to be, they may not be based on a careful analysis of their individual circumstances,” Jack VanDerhei, the institute’s research director and co-author of the report, said in a statement.
Worker savings remain “modest,” and less than half of workers appear to be taking basic steps needed to prepare for retirement, the survey found. More than half who provided financial information for the survey reported less than $25,000 in total household savings and investments, excluding the value of their home and any pension.
Americans also lack much of a financial cushion. Only about half of workers, and a comparable number of retirees, say they definitely could come up with $2,000 for an unexpected expense in the next month.
Are you able to save both for retirement and unexpected expenses?
Article source: http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/21/workers-still-uneasy-about-retirement-finances/?partner=rss&emc=rss
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