Economics

Boomers' Retirement Confidence Drops

28 percent of Americans have no confidence they have enough money

|

As if we needed more bad news about Americans' retirement readiness—or the lack thereof. Two weeks ago, the nonprofit Employee Benefit Research Institute reported that 28% of Americans have "no confidence" they will have enough money to retire comfortably—the highest level that figure has reached in the study's 23-year history.

Today, the Insured Retirement Institute, a nonprofit trade group that represents insurers, asset managers, and broker dealers who have a stake in selling retirement-related investment products, reported equally dismal news that focuses more narrowly on the baby boomers, the mega-slice of the population whose retirement fortunes–or, misfortunes –are destined to have an outsized impact on U.S. public policy and government programs including Social Security and Medicare. The trade group's research parses the data in ways that shed additional light on that generation's financial challenges.