In times of economic strain, pessimism about retirement often follows. Recent data suggests many Americans now believe their bleakest fear is becoming reality: that they won’t be able to retire at all.
More than two in five Americans — 43% — say they expect to work until they die, according to a WalletHub survey released at the end of August. Nearly two in five respondents (39%) said thinking about retirement makes them feel anxious, and more than one in four (29%) said they’re counting on family members to support them financially once they stop working.
Retirement doubt is not new in the U.S. A majority of Americans have told Gallup they’re worried about not having enough money for retirement every year since 2001 — it has ranked as the country’s top financial worry for more than two decades, ahead of medical costs and every other money concern Gallup tracks. But the latest wave of anxiety is landing as households contend with a fresh bout of inflation, which has moved back to the center of Americans’ financial worries. Fortune has tracked this shift across the retirement landscape, from vanishing pensions to a widening savings gap.
Rising prices have been most visible in essentials like gas and groceries. The national average for a gallon of regular gasoline hit $4.27 this week — up 13 cents in the past seven days alone — according to AAA, while the average price of ground beef reached $6.89 a pound in July, up 9.4% from a year earlier, per the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
The result is fear and uncertainty about the future. A report released in August by the National Institute on Retirement Security (NIRS) found that among the 61% of Americans concerned they won’t achieve financial security in retirement, 73% pointed to inflation as a contributing factor, with market volatility (62%) close behind. Those pressures echo the Employee Benefit Research Institute’s 2026 Retirement Confidence Survey, which found worker confidence in having enough to retire comfortably had slipped six points to 61%.
Debt is compounding the strain and eating into savings. In the NIRS report, 74% of respondents said debt is a problem, and 77% said it prevents them from saving adequately for retirement. WalletHub’s survey pointed in the same direction: 53% of respondents said paying off debt is more important than making retirement contributions. The picture helps explain why nearly four in 10 Americans nearing their 60s don’t have a retirement account at all, as Fortune has reported.
Retirement benefits beat working from home as a perk
Despite the strain, Americans still value retirement benefits highly. Among current workers, 75% say retirement benefits are a very or extremely important factor when weighing a job opportunity, and 41% say those benefits have become more important to them over the past year, according to the NIRS report.
Individual fears track with broader pessimism about whether retirement is attainable at all. The NIRS report found 80% of Americans believe the country is facing a retirement crisis, up from 67% in 2020. Half of WalletHub’s respondents (50%) said it isn’t realistic for the average American to retire comfortably. It’s a crisis Fortune has examined from the top down: TIAA CEO Thasunda Brown Duckett recently called America’s $4 trillion retirement shortfall “a real crisis,” warning that roughly 40% of Americans risk running out of money.
For some, working indefinitely isn’t only about money. A growing contingent of older Americans is staying on the job by choice — nearly 20% of those 65 and older are now employed, almost double the share of 35 years ago. But for millions more, the prospect of never clocking out is a source of dread, not fulfillment.
Newer wrinkles are complicating the picture, too. The NIRS report found that 53% of Americans oppose employers offering cryptocurrency as an option in workplace retirement plans, and 77% consider crypto in those plans risky. Attitudes toward artificial intelligence are similarly wary: nearly half (45%) said they’re uncomfortable with AI playing a role in delivering financial advice, even as a majority have used the technology.
While retirement anxiety is nothing new, it has taken a sharper form amid a bleak economic outlook and an uncertain road ahead.
“Americans are telling us that retirement security is becoming harder to achieve as they struggle with the affordability of everyday life. Housing, healthcare, debt and other expenses are competing with the need to save for retirement,” Dan Doonan, executive director of NIRS, said in the report. “At the same time, Americans are confronting new questions about AI and cryptocurrency as the retirement landscape becomes increasingly complex.”
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