Half Of Workers Fear They Will Never Fully Retire

Nearly half of working Americans doubt they will ever be able to fully retire, a new survey says.

Retirement fears are running high, according to the 2026 Retirement Expectations Survey from Thrivent, the financial services company. Among the concerns:

• 47% of workers doubt they will be able to retire completely.

• Only 58% of workers think they’ll have enough money to retire on schedule.

• 36% of workers expect to continue earning income in retirement.

“People are looking at retirement more as a transition than a finish line,” said Jason Rogoff, a financial adviser at Thrivent.

The survey, conducted by Ipsos in June, reached more than 2,000 American adults.

It comes at a time when American workers are worried about relentless inflation, Social Security shortfalls, conflict in the Middle East and the economic threat posed by AI. More than half of workers surveyed said they fear each of those things will hurt their retirement.

“We’re seeing people look at retirement just a little bit differently than they have in the past,” Rogoff said. 

The findings may also illustrate a broader lack of retirement confidence among employees, experts said, in an era when Americans are expected to do their own retirement saving, chiefly through IRAs and 401(k)s.

“Retirement is a big math problem,” said Robert Brokamp, a senior retirement adviser at The Motley Fool. “And you either have to have a really good tool or a really good expert who can help you nail down the numbers.”

More than a third of the workers surveyed for the Thrivent report said they feel they are behind other people their age in saving for retirement. Half of workers said thinking about retirement makes them anxious. 

When the survey asked people how much savings they think they will need to retire in comfort, only 23% chose a figure under $1 million.

“The average person doesn’t know what ‘enough’ is,” Brokamp said.

Many past surveys and studies have shown that American workers are haunted by fears that they won’t have enough money in retirement.

One recent survey put the retirement “magic number” at $1.2 million. Others have ranged higher. 

But most Americans have nowhere near that much money saved for retirement. Federal data shows that only around half of Americans have retirement accounts at all. 

Retirement saving is less of a problem for the wealthy. Among people in the top 10% by net worth, more than 90% have retirement accounts, and the median balance is $900,000, according to the 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances. 

“We’ve all heard of the K-shaped economy,” Brokamp said. “And I think there’s a K-shaped retirement trajectory.”

Fears about retirement savings prompt many people to assume they will keep working more or less forever. 

Roughly three-quarters of workers plan to work for pay after they officially retire, according to the 2026 Retirement Confidence Survey from the Employee Benefit Research Institute. 

Yet only 31% of retirees are actually working, the same survey found. 

This article originally appeared in USA Today and was provided by Reuters.