More and more Americans in their 30s and early 40s are worried if they’ll be able to retire one day, more so than their aging baby boomer counterparts, a new Pew Research Center survey finds.
The survey finds that overall, 38 percent say they are “not too” or “not at all” confident that they will have enough income and assets for their retirement, up from 25 percent in a Pew survey conducted in late February and March of 2009.
However, those in their late 30s and early 40s worry the most they will outlive whatever savings they plan to have for retirement.
Editor's Note: How You Lost $85,000 During the Last Decade. See the Numbers.
“Among this younger age group, the proportion who are ‘not too’ or ‘not at all’ confident they will have enough to live on in retirement has more than doubled, from 20 percent in 2009 to 49 percent in the latest poll,” Pew reported.
“Three years ago, adults in this age group were the least likely, along with retirement-age adults (19 percent), to express doubts about their retirement finances. Now adults ages 35 to 44 rank ahead of every other age group in terms of their concern about retirement finances.”
Only 25 percent of those older than 65 and 27 percent of those younger than 35 were worried, Pew added.
The spike in anxiety among Generation Xers probably stems from the amount of wealth they lost during the downturn.
“In the past decade, households headed by adults ages 35 to 44 have lost the most wealth of any age group, and nearly all of those losses have occurred since the Great Recession began in 2007,” Pew added.
“In the past 10 years, median wealth of households headed by adults 35 to 44 years old has dropped from $99,727 in 2001 to $43,698 in 2010, a 56 percent decline.”
Other polls also paint a bleak view of retirement in the United States.
A Gallup poll found in June of this year that most American investors feel powerless to save and plan for retirement.
The polling firm reported that 57 percent of investors say they feel they have little or no control over their efforts to build and maintain their retirement savings in the current environment.
The figure remains basically unchanged from 58 percent feeling likewise in February, but down from 65 percent in September 2011, when the U.S. debt-ceiling debacle nearly threw the country into default.
Thirty percent said they have quite a lot of control, and 13 percent said they have a great deal of control.
High unemployment rates straining household finances, bloated government deficits, Wall Street volatility and a weak economy in general make retirement planning difficult.
“Even as the May swoon on Wall Street was getting under way and the financial crisis in Europe was becoming more of an issue for the global economy, 57 percent of investors felt they had little or no control over building and maintaining their retirement savings,” Gallup says.
“Further, 28 percent said their control over their retirement savings had decreased over the past six months. Little wonder why only 48 percent of investors in the most recent investor poll say now is a good time to invest in the financial markets, compared with 62 percent in February of last year.”
Editor's Note: How You Lost $85,000 During the Last Decade. See the Numbers.
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