Americans are more confident about their financial futures since the recession—but that might not be saying much.
About one in five American workers feels very confident about having enough money for a comfortable retirement, according to the 2016 Retirement Confidence Survey released by the Employee Benefit Research Institute. Only 13% of American workers felt so sunny about retirement just three years ago.
Altogether, the percentage of American workers who are somewhat confident or very confident about their retirement outlook reached 63% this year.
“Among those who are confident about retirement, it’s overwhelmingly among those who have a retirement plan,” Jack VanDerhei, a co-author of the 2016 RCS, said in a press release. “Even if you control for discrepancies in age and income, the likelihood that a respondent is either somewhat or very confident that they will have enough money to live comfortably throughout their retirement years is 22 percentage points higher for those who have an IRA [individual retirement account], DC [defined contribution] plan, and/or DB [defined benefit] plan than their counterparts without a retirement plan.”
A sizable portion of workers are barely saving for retirement at all. According to the survey, 69% of workers say they or their spouses have saved for retirement; 26% say they have less than $1,000 saved.