U.S. workers who are working with financial advisors are saving more for retirement than their peers, according to a new survey.
Millennials with advisors have saved an average of $89,724, or 28 percent more than those without advisors, the survey said. Baby boomers have saved more than $333,085, compared with $286,671 for those without an advisor, according to a survey by Natixis Investment Managers.
Among those in Generation X, those with advisors have saved 3 percent more than the non-advised.
Workers with advisors also reported contributing a higher percentage of their salary to a workplace retirement plan—5.8 percent versus 5.6 percent for millennials, 7.9 percent versus 7 percent for Generation X, and 9.9 percent versus 7.6 percent for baby boomers.
The survey also found that workers are increasingly realizing that the uncertainties of Social Security and the lack of pensions makes them more responsible for their own retirement funding.
Eighty-five percent of workers said it’s increasingly their responsibility to provide the savings for their retirement,
Three-quarters of workers believe employers should be mandated to provide workplace retirement savings plans. More than half (53 percent) said it’s the government’s responsibility to provide universal access to retirement savings plans. Sixty-eight percent said employers should be required to provide matching contributions in their workplace savings plans. And 54 percent of workers also believe personal retirement plan contributions should be mandatory.
Three-quarters of respondents believe employers should make their retirement plans available to workers on the first day of employment—something they believe would drive up worker participation.
Sixty percent of respondents said they don’t have enough knowledge about their workplace retirement savings, and that they need help investing.
Forty-one percent overall and nearly half of millennials said they wished they had a better understanding of how the market affects their savings, with 30 percent of respondents saying volatility made them realized that there were more risks to passive investing than they previously thought.