Retiree Fact Sheet

Findings from the 1996 Retirement Confidence Survey

The popular perception of today's retiree, and the image reinforced by today's media to current workers, is that of the well-off with no cares, playing golf, traveling, and spending time with the grandchildren. While many retirees fit this description, a sizable percentage do not according to results from the 1996 Retirement Confidence Survey.

  • Twenty-two percent of retirees say their lifestyle is worse now that in their first year of retirement.
  • Twenty-one percent of retirees expect their standard of living to deteriorate over the next several years.
  • Thirteen percent of retirees say that their overall lifestyle in retirement has been worse than they expected at the time they retired.
  • Nineteen percent of retirees say that their retirement experience in terms of having enough money for leisure activities has been worse than they expected.
  • Twenty-four percent of retirees are not confident that they will have enough money to live comfortably throughout their retirement years. (Only 30 percent are "very confident" that they will have enough money.)
  • Twenty-four percent of retirees are not confident that they did a good job of preparing financially for retirement.
  • Twenty-five percent of retirees are not confident that they will have enough money to take care of their medical expenses.
  • Thirty percent of retirees are not confident that they will have enough money to pay for most of the recreational, entertainment, or travel pursuits they desire.
  • Forty-eight percent of retirees retired earlier than they had planned and most often it was for negative reasons that were beyond their control, such as health reasons (38 percent) or company downsizing (19 percent).
  • Eighteen percent of retirees associate "retirement" with the negative attributes of financial struggle, bad health, depression, and a feeling of not being useful.