Retirement Confidence Among Workers, Retirees Slips to Lowest Point in Nearly a Decade

The smallest share of workers and retirees in nearly a decade reported being confident they have enough money to live comfortably throughout retirement, according to the Employee Benefits Research Institute and Greenwald Research’s 2026 Retirement Confidence Survey, released Tuesday. Rising health care costs, mounting debt and steep housing prices largely fueled respondents’ heightened concerns.

According to the survey, 61% of workers and 73% of retirees reported being very or somewhat confident they had enough money for retirement, down from 67% and 78% last year, respectively. Worker confidence slipped 6 percentage points year-over-year—to the lowest point since 2017 (when it was 60%)—while retiree confidence slipped 5 percentage points to its lowest mark since 2015 (when it was 71%).

Factors Fueling Woes

In 2026, workers’ and retirees’ confidence in the future value of Social Security and Medicare declined—by 1 percentage point each for workers, hovering near 50%, but by 5 percentage points and 8 percentage points, respectively, for retirees, bringing both shares down to the low 60s.

Debt remained a major obstacle to confidence in 2026, especially for workers. Up from 49% last year, 58% of workers reported that having debt decreased their ability to save for—or their expectation to live comfortably in—retirement. The share of retirees reporting that debt interfered with their ability to save and live comfortably was up 10 percentage points, to 29%.

Half of workers reported having credit card debt, and nearly one-third reported having more than $25,000 in non-mortgage debt.

High health care costs continued to strain Americans before and during retirement, as 58% of workers and 40% of retirees polled in January said the prices hurt their ability to save for and live comfortably in retirement. Fewer than half of workers and retirees said they have calculated how much they will need to save for health care expenses in retirement.

While more workers this year than in 2025 reported that they expect to never retire, more retired earlier than planned (46%, up from 40% in 2025). The most common reason for early retirement was a health problem or disability (41%), up 10 percentage points from last year.

Craig Copeland, EBRI’s director of wealth benefits, says that while a worker may have a target retirement age, it can be a good idea to save more earlier, as a layer of protection against the unknown.

“Many people think they’ll be able to continue working—maybe not forever, but to an older age,” Copeland says. “Very few people get that opportunity to [follow] their exact plan.”

Elevated housing prices served as another source of pressure for workers and retirees alike. About 72% of workers and 52% of retirees said they were worried that rising housing costs would affect—or are already affecting—their life in retirement. Responding to a question about their current experience, 59% of workers and 34% of retirees said the cost of housing was already impeding their ability to save for, and live comfortably in, retirement.

Interest in Guaranteed Income Up, Usage Remains Steady

Despite blows to their retirement confidence, more than 80% of workers reported being satisfied with their workplace retirement plans. However, the report revealed that plan satisfaction did not equate to confidence in sustainable savings.

Compared with 74% in 2025, some 69% of retirees surveyed in 2026 reported believing they would have enough savings to last their lifetime. Among workers, 57% believed the same this year, compared with 55% in 2025.

Among workers with access to a workplace retirement saving program, more than one- third said a guaranteed lifetime income option would be a valuable improvement to their plan. An overwhelming 84% said they would be interested in purchasing a guaranteed monthly income product; nearly as many said they found purchasing annuities in a target-date fund appealing; and two-thirds said they were interested in a Social Security “bridge annuity” that would provide them income until age 70, allowing them to maximize their benefits by delaying claiming Social Security until that age.

More than half of workers (57%) reported expecting a guaranteed income product to be a source of income in retirement, but a significantly smaller share of retirees—36%—said it was one of their current sources of income.

Workers reported understanding several investment options well, but the degree to which they actually comprehended some struck Copeland as surprising.

Most workers said they understood retirement income options (79%), managed accounts (76%) and TDFs (64%) at least somewhat well, but Copeland says he finds the 12-percentage-point difference between understandings of managed accounts and TDFs “concerning,” since participants know less about their primary investment vehicles.

“Managed accounts have become widely available,” Copeland says. But it is “concerning that people don’t feel knowledgeable about them despite [such accounts] being a default option for years now.”

EBRI conducted its survey from January 2 through January 28 among 2,544 Americans, split roughly evenly between workers and retirees.