Retirees have fewer options and less ability to recover from setbacks. Here’s when today’s average American is retiring

Americans are feeling less confident about retirement these days.

The new Retirement Confidence Survey from the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) finds that the number of workers who feel confident they will have enough money to live comfortably through their retirement has fallen by six percentage points to 61% in the last year.

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That’s the lowest level since 2017.

“Retirees are now coping with economic uncertainty. They are especially vulnerable to inflation, rising health care costs and financial market volatility — all factors that can easily erode their buying power on limited income. Because retirees are no longer employed, they have fewer options and less ability than people in the workforce to recover from financial setbacks,” wrote the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies in a separate report late last year.

The good life

While people who have yet to retire are feeling more pessimistic about their golden years, many of the people who are currently living them are feeling better about things. Some 73% of retirees told EBRI they were either very or somewhat confident about having enough money to live comfortably throughout their retirement years. That number was down from 78% last year, however.

The uncertainty about people’s financial readiness for retirement is further blurring the age at which people retire. People can file for Social Security at the age of 62, but Medicare doesn’t kick in until the age of 65. And if you want your full Social Security benefits, you’ll need to wait until you’re 67.

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The EBRI study, however, found that three out of five workers retired before the age of 65, with the median retirement age being 62. And though half of working Americans say they expect to gradually transition into retirement, 75% of retirees have fully stopped working.

The Transamerica study agrees, saying the median retirement age is 62, with 55% of retirees reporting they no longer work before the age of 65. In fact, when it comes to the “traditional” retirement age of 65, just 14% of workers retire at that point in their life.

Living arrangements

While active workers say debt is an ongoing problem for them, with 65% telling EBRI it’s a concern, just 40% of retired people say their debts are problematic (and just 13% saying it’s a major problem).

That gives them more flexibility to choose where to live, Transamerica says. Some 62% say proximity to family and friends is the most important criteria when making that decision. And a growing number are actually choosing to stay put, with 63% staying in the home they lived in before retiring. (Three-quarters of retirees own their home, says Transamerica.)

The biggest fear of those retirees, though, isn’t housing-centric, it’s political. Both ERBI and Transamerica found that the biggest retirement fears revolved around long-term care and Social Security being reduced or ceasing to exist.

Those fears are likely to be exacerbated after word came earlier this year that Social Security’s Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund is projected to exhaust its reserve funds in late 2032.

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This article originally appeared on Moneywise.com under the title: Retirees have fewer options and less ability to recover from setbacks. Here’s when today’s average American is retiring

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