Moderate confidence in a secure retirement has risen this year to 42 percent over 36 percent in 2015, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute in its 26th annual Retirement Confidence Survey released Tuesday.

At the same time, high confidence, which climbed steadily to 22 percent in 2015 from a historic low of 13 percent in the depths of the recession, dipped to 21 percent.

This  leveling off of renewed confidence since the loss of jobs  and assets during  the 2008 financial crisis has also shown up in the number of workers figuring they will have to delay retirement.

When the recession was at its worse, 25 percent of workers said they were planning to postpone retirement. That number has stayed steady at 13 percent for the last two years.

Active concern about retirement financial needs rose during the year.

In 2016, 49 percent of workers said they estimated how much income they will require monthly in retirement, up from 45 percent the year before.

Not surprisingly, people with savings and a carefully thought out plan for saving are overwhelmingly more upbeat about their retirement prospects than individuals and couples who have neither.

“Even if you control for discrepancies in age and income, the likelihood that a respondent is either somewhat or very confident that they will have enough money to live comfortably throughout their retirement years is 22 percentage points higher for those who have an IRA, defined contribution plan and/or defined benefit plan than their counterparts without a retirement plan,” said Jack VanDerhei, EBRI research director and co-author of the report.

For people with a retirement plan, 35 percent said they have assets of $100,000 or more (excluding primary homes and defined benefit plans) while 83 percent of people without a plan report total household savings and investments under $10,000.

In another indication of how money plays a significant role in retirement confidence, only 9 percent of people with a big debt problem said they are happy about their retirement prospects versus 32 percent of those without large debt worries expressing strong beliefs in their retirement futures.

Almost two-thirds of workers anticipate IRAs and other personal savings will supplement Social Security for their financial needs in retirement while nearly three-quarters said they should be getting help from an employer-sponsored retirement plan.

Long-term care insurance is seen by few workers and retirees as a vital component of a secure retirement.

Just 4 percent of retirees and 12 percent of workers said they are very interested in the insurance to help pay for the certainly high but uncertainly needed expenses of home health care and nursing home care.

There were some danger signs in the report.

EBRI says, a sizable percentage of workers report they have virtually no savings or investments.

Twenty-six percent of those surveyed say they have less than $1,000. Retirees are more likely than workers to describe their level of debt as not a problem. Sixty-seven percent of retirees and 44 percent of workers indicate they do not have a problem with their level of debt.

Alarmingly, current savings levels are not sufficient to support a comfortable retirement, says Matthew Greenwald, president of Greenwald and Associates, which conducted the survey. Fifty-four percent of workers say they have less than $25,000 in savings or investments.

Many people say they can retire but their savings levels do not support that, says Greenwald. Sixty-five percent of workers think they can live on half of their pre-retirement income, which is unrealistic, he says, and 39 percent say they are just guessing at what their financial needs will be in retirement.

EBRI is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization that focuses on health, savings, retirement and economic security issues. The survey included 1,000 workers and 505 retirees.

Karen DeMasters contributed to this story.