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Get Realistic About Your Retirement Goals

The Journal Gazetter, 11/14/07

Abstract:

Many Americans are looking at their future retirement through rosy-colored glasses, expecting to spend those years in comfort and security.Yet the facts might paint a different picture.

According to the 16th annual Retirement Confidence Survey, by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, released in 2006, 24 percent of the nation's workers are "very confident" they'll have enough money to live on comfortably when they retire, and 44 percent are "somewhat confident".

That's more than two-thirds of current workers, yet surveys reveal that their confidence might be misplaced. For example, a 2006 U.S. Census Bureau report states that only about 50 percent of baby boomers have enough savings and wealth for their retirement. The EBRI survey agrees. Only 70 percent of respondents said they are saving anything for retirement. And those who are saving aren't saving enough. More than half of the baby boomers surveyed - in fact, two-thirds of all workers in the survey - said they had less than $50,000 in retirement savings and investments.

Combine that with the fact that many workers have unrealistic expectations of how much retirement income they will need, and the prospects are anything but rosy.

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