Income is also a key factor in workers' ability to save for retirement; 68 percent of respondents with household income of less than $35,000 a year have savings of less than $1,000.

“Even though the economy is recovering from the great recession, more and more respondents say their level of debt is higher than it was five years ago,” said Greenwald. “It’s interesting to compare these low levels of savings and problematic debt levels to the rising confidence level. It appears that people make some assumptions about how financially secure they will be In the future based on how well the economy’s performing now. With economic conditions being somewhat cyclical this obviously is not a good way of making judgments about the future.”

Only 44 percent of workers reported that they have tried to calculate how much money they will need to have saved by the time they retire.

Forty-three percent of plan participants said that having the financial services company that handles their retirement plan give them recommendations as to how much to withdraw from their plan each month to make savings and investments last throughout retirement would be very valuable. Another 45 percent think it would be somewhat valuable.

Nineteen percent of workers and 25 percent of retirees report they have obtained investment advice from a professional financial advisor. Of these workers, only 27 percent followed all of the advice.

The survey was conducted in January 2014 through telephone interviews with 1,501 individuals (1,000 workers and 501 retirees) age 25 and older in the U.S. The RCS is co-sponsored by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI), a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy research organization, and Mathew Greenwald & Associates, Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based market research firm.
 

First « 1 2 » Next