Retirement Confidence Down in Latest EBRI Survey

Only 13 percent of U.S. workers said they were very confident about having enough money for a comfortable retirement this year, down from 18 percent and 27 percent in 2008 and 2007, respectively, according to EBRI’s 19th annual Retirement Confidence Survey, released Tuesday, April 14.

The survey, conducted by the Employee Benefit Research Institute and Mathew Greenwald & Associates, also found that 28 percent of workers changed their expected retirement dates in the last year, with 89 percent of them postponing retirement with the goal of increasing their financial security.

More workers this year also said they plan to work after they retire: 72 percent versus 63 percent in the 2008 survey.

“After a very poor performance in the stock market and overall economy, workers have become very concerned about their ability to finance a comfortable retirement, and many are looking toward working longer,” Craig Copeland, EBRI senior research associate, said in an interview.

Workers also said they have more than twice the level of confidence in banks than they do in investment companies. In response to a question asked for the first time in this year’s survey, 77 percent said they were at least somewhat confident in banks, compared with 37 percent who said they had the same level of confidence in investment companies.

The survey also said that 67 percent of the workers were at least somewhat confident in insurance companies, while 59 percent had a similar level of confidence in the U.S. government.

The survey was conducted in January and was based on randomly selected telephone interviews with 1,257 people age 25 and older.

EBRI is a nonprofit research institute. Mathew Greenwald & Associates is a survey research firm.

Filed by Doug Halonen of Pensions & Investments, a sister publication of Workforce Management. To comment, e-mail editors@workforce.com.