The statistic shows the share of Americans aged between 50 and 64 with no retirement savings in 2010. The categories are divided into income quartiles ranging from 0 to 10,800 U.S. dollars in the bottom 25th percentile to more than 52,201 U.S. dollars in the 75-100th percentile. The percentage of Americans in the bottom 25th percentile was equal to 77 percent.

Saving for retirement

Without a shadow of a doubt, the recession has had an impact on retirement plans and how people save. It is clear to see just how alarming the situation is when one takes into account the sheer amount of Americans aged between 50 and 64 who have no retirement savings. And even for those who have saved and regularly paid into retirement savings the outlook is less than secure. Adding to the worry are the increasing claims being made by industry experts that the savings accrued by middle-class seniors will have nowhere near the required level of sufficiency to support current standards of living in to retirement.

It is important to start thinking and planning in order to be able to enjoy an early retirement. Those who start to save later for retirement, and forego early saving practices will realize that playing catch-up and saving much more intensively later in life is extremely punishing. Everyone wants different things in retirement and first of all it is important to decide what sort of retirement lifestyle is desirable for the individual. Knowing what the desired lifestyle is will help to determine how much money will need to be saved.

In 2022, 88 percent of U.S. citizens who were 60 years old or older had some type of retirement savings. This information can be interpreted by the number of people in that age group without any retirement savings, which amounted to 12 percent. The share of individuals with retirement savings was lower in the younger age groups, and among adults from 18 to 29 years old, just 57 had retirement savings.

Roughly 28 percent of Americans had household retirement savings reaching 250,000 U.S. dollars or more by the end of 2023. Meanwhile, eight percent of respondents stated to not have any household retirement savings at all. The share of people with retirement savings ranging from 100,000 to 250,000 U.S. dollars has decreased between 2020 and 2023.

In 2023, the main challenge facing Americans trying to save for retirement was being able to make meaningful investments. According to a survey carried out in October 2023, roughly 77 percent of individuals who did not have access to a retirement plan from their employer felt they did not have enough cash to contribute to their retirement savings, while 78 percent of women and non-binary individuals surveyed felt they were unsure about what investments best suited their individual goals.

In 2022, 56 percent of Hispanic respondents in the United States reported that they had some retirements savings, making them the group with the lowest rate. In contrast, 80 percent of white people in the U.S. had any retirement savings, with a significant amount of them saying that their retirement savings were on track. Roughly 22 percent of black people said that their savings were on track.

In 2023, less than 12 percent of the participants in a survey were on track to max out their retirement contributions. While many pension plans worldwide have no contribution limit, in the U.S., the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) sets a maximum limit on contributions made to 401(k) plans by an individual and their employer every year.

During a survey conducted in May 2022, around 49 percent of millennial respondents from Ant Fortune platform in China who had not started saving money for their retirement stated that they lack capital for saving. The legal retirement age in China is currently 60 for male, 55 for female civil servants and 50 for female workers.

This statistic shows the accumulated retirement savings among gig economy workers in the United States in 2018. During the survey, 27 percent of gig economy workers whose gig job is their main job reported having no retirement savings, compared to 12 percent of respondents who had both a full-time job with a side gig.

This table contains 58320 series, with data for years 1999 - 2016 (not all combinations necessarily have data for all years). This table contains data described by the following dimensions (Not all combinations are available): Geography (20 items: Canada; Atlantic; Newfoundland and Labrador; Prince Edward Island; ...); Assets and debts (27 items: Total assets; Private pension assets; Registered Retirement Savings Plans (RRSPs), Registered Retirement Income Funds (RRIFs), Locked-in Retirement Accounts (LIRAs) and other; Employer-sponsored Registered Pension Plans (EPPs); ...); Net worth quintiles (6 items: Total, all net worth quintiles; Lowest net worth quintile; Second net worth quintile; Middle net worth quintile; ...); Statistics (6 items: Total values; Percentage of total assets or total debts; Number holding asset or debt; Percentage holding asset or debt; ...); Confidence intervals (3 items: Estimate; Lower bound of a 95% confidence interval; Upper bound of a 95% confidence interval).

German speaking inhabitants aged 18 years and over.

Percentage difference of total savings and income (annuity) at age 65 for people working part time with no chronic condition, part time with diabetes, full time with diabetes, and not in the labour force due to diabetes compared to those working full time with no chronic condition.

In 2019, almost half of the Baby Boomers in the United States were not saving for retirement. Approximately 24 percent of the Americans aged between 54 and 72 years old were saving between one and ten percent of their monthly income. The source did not indicate what percentage of these respondents were already retired.

Notes: p-value for test of equality of means controls for randomization at the market level.n.a. denotes not applicable since there is no variation in this variable within markets.Verification of Randomization for Individual Characteristics Table.

During a survey conducted in May 2019, 27 percent of female respondents from Ant Fortune platform had no idea about targets of their retirement savings. The legal retirement age in China is currently 60 for male, 55 for female civil servants and 50 for female workers.

According to a survey conducted among retirees in the United States in 2024, 30 percent of the respondents were very confident about having enough money to take care of medical expenses during retirement. On the other hand, seven percent of retirees said that they were not at all confident about it.

When working and retired French adults were asked in the beginning of 2021 which approach they take to saving for retirement, the largest share of respondents stated that they always make sure to be generating retirement income. A total of 34 respondents reported taking this approach, followed by 28 percent of individuals who reported that they were saving for retirement, but not on a regular basis. The share of people that reported not ever saving for retirement and having no intention to do so, stood at 10 percent as of 2021.

According to the results of a survey conducted in the United States 2021, turning a certain age was the main trigger for starting to save for retirement. The survey, conducted among 1,000 working and fully retired Americans, revealed that many respondents started saving for retirement for work-related reasons.

In 2020, 38 percent of pensioners in Poland indicated that they had no savings. Only six percent of them have savings above their annual income.

In 2019, 36 percent of the Millennials in the United States were not saving for retirement. Approximately 31 percent of the Americans aged between 23 and 37 years old were saving between one and ten percent of their monthly income.

A total of 39 percent of the Dutch respondents claimed that they were always making sure to be generating retirement income, whereas 12 percent said that they had never saved for retirement and that they were not intending to do this in the future either. These insights were provided thanks to a survey a survey on the approaches to retirement savings conducted in the Netherlands in 2020