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Key Takeaways
- Only 7% of Gen X and 23% of Boomers+ said they had more than 10x their annual income saved up, which is the minimum that experts recommend having available for retirement.
- The majority of Gen X said they have three times their annual income (or less) saved up for retirement, according to a recent study.
- More than half of Gen X and Boomers don’t think they’re financially prepared for retirement.
A majority of Gen X people, or those born between 1965 and 1980, who are fast approaching retirement don’t have enough money saved for when they stop working.
While financial experts recommend saving up to 10 times your annual income for retirement, only 7% of Gen X respondents in a Northwestern Mutual survey released Tuesday said they had more than 10 times their income saved.
The oldest Gen-Xers turn 60 next year and the average retirement age is between 61 and 65 years old.
Yet older generations who are even closer to retiring, such as Boomers+, seem to be in a better spot when it comes to retirement, possibly because they had more time to save. Nearly one-quarter (23%) of Boomers+ (defined generally as those born in 1964 or earlier) have reached the expert-recommended target of saving more than 10 times their annual salary.
More than half (51%) of Gen X respondents in a Northwestern Mutual survey said they had at most three times their annual income saved.
Why Older Generations Surveyed Aren’t Ready for Retirement
The older generations among the four surveyed by Northwestern Mutual were also the most likely of all age groups to say that they’re not financially prepared for retirement—more than half of Boomers+ and Gen X, said they’re not ready.
And this could be partly due to lack of retirement planning—a separate survey by Allianz released Tuesday found that only 30% of Gen Xers had a retirement income plan, the least of all the generations surveyed.
According to the Northwestern Mutual report, Boomers+ still have lingering questions about their next stage of life—like how much money they’ll need to have saved to live comfortably in retirement, whether it’s possible to outlive their savings, and how they should plan for long-term care needs.
And while long-term care is on the mind of many Boomers, with more than half of them saying that it’s likely that they’ll need long-term care at some point, only 40% have actually prepared for the prospect of needing such care for themselves, and 28% for a loved one.