All the doom and gloom around retirement readiness may finally have caught Americans’ attentions.
According to a recent study by Bankrate.com, more than one-in-five, or 21 percent, of Americans say they are saving more for retirement versus last year — the best mark reported by the survey in five years.
More than half of those surveyed, 56 percent, say they are saving the same amount for retirement as last year, also a record high.
Most significantly, according to Bankrate.com, is that the proportion of survey respondents who have cut back on their rate of retirement savings versus last year, 17 percent, is now less than those who are reporting increases.
This year’s survey respondents reverse a trend towards reducing retirement saving rates first measured in 2011, when 29 percent reported cutting back their retirement savings versus just 15 percent who reported increases.
Members of Generation X, aged 36-to-51, were most likely to report increasing their retirement savings rates from last year, at 26 percent, followed by younger millennials aged 18-to-25, at 22 percent.
Younger baby boomers, aged 52-to-61, and members of the “silent generation,” aged 71 and older, were the only age groups that reported saving less for retirement this year.
Just five percent of this year’s respondents say they didn’t contribute to a retirement savings account in 2015 or 2016, the lowest number since Bankrate.com started the survey.
Respondents also reported having a higher net worth this year versus last year by a more than 2-to-1 ratio.
The survey’s respondents boosted Bankrate.com’s monthly Financial Security Index, which measures optimism about the state of their personal finances, to its second highest level of this year at 104.5, citing job security, improving net worth and comfort with their levels of debt as prime reasons.