More People Expect to Have a Comfortable Retirement

Fifty-four percent of people who are not yet retired expect they will have enough money for retirement, up from 48% last year, according to a Gallup survey. This is the highest percentage since 2007, when 53% expressed this confidence. However, when Gallup first started this survey in 2002, 59% said they thought they would have a comfortable retirement.

In 2008, a few months into the Great Recession, only 46% thought they would have a comfortable retirement. That declined to an all-time low of 38% in 2012.

Younger people are more optimistic about retirement than older people, with nearly two-thirds of those between the ages of 18 and 29 expecting to have a secure retirement, compared with half of those between the ages of 30 and 64.

Those who are worried about not having enough money throughout their retirement has also declined, with 54% expressing this concern, down from 64% last year and at the lowest level since 2004. In 2012, it reached a high of 67%.

Among those who are retired, 63% are not worried about having enough money to last them throughout their golden years.

Gallup says the improving results could be the result of a healthier economy as well as the continued bull market.

The telephone survey was conducted among 1,019 adults in early April.