Nearly half of Americans have no savings for retirement—and many do not seem to care.
In a survey released Wednesday, GoBankingRates.com, an educational and financial information resource for consumers, found that 45.5% of the 2,003 adults of all ages who were polled said they have nothing saved for retirement.
Another 18.8% have less than $10,000 put away to support what could be a 30-year retirement, the survey said. Another 12.3% have between $10,000 and $49,999 saved.
Surprisingly, 48% said they did not care how much, or how little, they have saved, and half of those who said they have nothing saved said they were not concerned. Not surprisingly, the younger the respondent, the less he or she cared about retirement savings.
Various reasons were given for not saving. Forty-five percent said they do not make enough money to save, 24.4% said they are struggling to pay regular bills, and 9.2% said they feel they do not need retirement savings.
For those who are saving, 45% are using a traditional savings account, 30% are using a 401(k), and 14% are using IRAs or Roth IRAs.
The percentage of those who have nothing saved decreases with age. Sixty-three percent of Gen Zers have $0 saved, 54% of millennials have $0 saved, and 33% of respondents age 65 and older have nothing saved.
“Planning for retirement is crucial. The amount of money needed to retire depends on several variables—like where you live—but most financial advisors will agree that zero is definitely not enough,” GoBankingRates.com said.
“We run a lot of these surveys, and year over year the savings rate is improving a little, but there are still just a lot of people who are not big savers,” said Joel Anderson, in-house writer on investing for GoBankingRates.com. “Some said they do not make enough money to save for retirement and others said they were struggling to pay bills, which is sort of the same answer.
“It shows that a lot of people are not getting the wage increases they need to be financially stable,” he added.