Americans may be walking into retirement blindfolded. A new report from Evergreen.ai, a financial-planning platform, found that 42% of Americans have never calculated how much money they will need in retirement — and even those closest to the finish line are avoiding the math. One-third of those who expect to retire within the next 15 years have avoided running their retirement numbers, the report says.
Americans heading toward retirement without a plan, per a new Evergreen.ai report (Credits: MarketWatch)
Over 40% of Americans are heading toward retirement blind with no plan
The avoidance looks deliberate, advisers quoted in the report suggest. “People are busy, and people don’t want bad news. They don’t want to know if they have a shortfall,” said Joseph Spada, a private wealth adviser with Summit Financial in Parsippany, New Jersey. “It’s human nature.”
That human nature is colliding with a deep fear. 67% of Americans fear running out of money more than death, according to the Allianz Center for the Future of Retirement. Yet preparation lags badly: the median amount workers have saved for retirement is just $955, according to the National Institute of Retirement Security — a small fraction of the $1.2 million Americans think they will need to retire comfortably, per Schroders.
Advisers say knowing your number is the point
“It’s the most common fear there is: running out of money. But unless you have a plan, there’s a risk you won’t have enough,” said Christopher Walsh, a senior financial adviser at Capital Choice Arizona in Phoenix. “Coming up with a plan is mitigating the fear of not knowing. The longer you go without a plan, the bigger the risk is of running out of money or not having enough.”
Walsh added that time itself is the advantage: “The more time you give yourself, the more flexibility you have to fix things. Sitting on the sidelines gives you fewer choices, and often suboptimal choices.”
The report’s takeaway is not a prediction of doom but a diagnosis of avoidance. Nearly half the country has not done the one calculation that tells them where they stand — and the clock, as the report’s authors note, only moves in one direction.
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Source: MarketWatch — read the full story there.
