Americans’ confidence about their ability to retire comfortably has fallen sharply and stands at the lowest level in seven years, according to survey research released today by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI). The percentage of individuals highly confident about their retirement outlook dropped from 27 percent to 18 percent, according to EBRI.

Other key findings:

• Health care is a big worry: About half of current retirees say they are spending more on health care than anticipated; that confirms findings at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College documenting the growing health care burden.
• Planning still lacking: Only 47 percent said they have developed a serious financial plan for retirement. That’s up slightly from 42 percent a year ago.
• Savings are inadequate: 72 percent say they have saved something for retirement, but 49 percent say it’s less than $50,000.

Wall Street Journal coverage of the survey is here.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 at 9:21 am and is filed under Financial Services, Health Care. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.