A healthy retirement is getting more and more out of reach for many Americans. More than half of all Americans today do not have a retirement plan in place and rely on Social Security to make ends meet or as their only source of income, despite the fact that it is one of the things that keeps people going.

The 2024 Annual Retirement Study by Allianz Life revealed this alarming statistic. 56% of Americans over 25 who participated in a survey conducted by the company in February and March of this year said they lacked a sound financial plan for their post-working years.

They also found that almost half (48 percent) worry about living too cheaply and not enjoying retirement to the fullest, which is particularly worrisome for those who lack sufficient savings to bridge the gap between their potential benefit amount and expenses.

And that worry isn’t going away; according to 42% of respondents, the rising cost of living is the largest threat to retirees’ financial security, and 35% are worried about outliving their retirement savings. Forty-five percent of those surveyed were then worried about how to make their retirement income last by taking the best possible distributions from their retirement assets.

The fact that 32% of respondents were worried about healthcare expenses and 30% thought they would overspend in retirement and run out of money were other legitimate worries expressed.

In a statement, Allianz Life’s vice president of consumer insights, Kelly LaVigne, described the alarming results of the report: You’re not prepared to retire if you don’t know how you’ll use your retirement assets to generate income.

While accumulating assets is a major component of retirement planning, it’s equally crucial to know how those assets will be used to finance your post-retirement lifestyle. Making important choices like when to start taking Social Security benefits and what assets you have to finance your retirement are necessary to achieve this.

Other retirement centric surveys

Many Americans who are getting close to retirement do not have enough money to pay their needs for the foreseeable future and will not be able to save enough before making the decision. This survey is not the first to find such trends. Even worse, a lot of seniors don’t have any other sources of income besides Social Security.

In earlier generations, retirement was frequently viewed as a clear, abrupt occurrence in which people worked until a specific age and then completely left the profession, Jim Davis, senior wealth manager at Texas-based Aspen Wealth Management, told Newsweek.

However, instead of retiring all at once, more retirees today are opting for a phased strategy, in which they progressively cut back on their work hours. Financial demands, longer life expectancies, and a desire to maintain mental and social activity for a longer amount of time are the main causes of this change.

According to a recent Greenwald Research poll for Edelman Financial Engines, one-third of participants think they will never be able to fully retire and will need to work at least part-time in their later years, which reinforced his assertion.

In their 2023 analysis, the Pew Research Center also revealed a depressing statistic: nearly twice as many Americans 65 and older were still employed in 2023 as they were 35 years prior.

The high point of this survey series was a survey of 2,000 American retirees by the financial consulting firm The Motley Fool.

They found that half are thinking about going back to work because they don’t have enough money, and they asked the question just after the 2025 2.5 percent cost of living adjustment for Social Security benefits was announced.

Also Read: 2025’s Largest Social Security Change Most likely, the promise won’t be fulfilled in the end.

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