Survey Reveals Americans not Retirement Ready

Out of the 37% of adults who have no retirement savings, 41% are women. The survey also found that although most adults are confident they will be able to retire, 38% plan to live off Social Security in retirement.

Consumer sentiment continues to be pessimistic, with 63% of adults and 72% of those over 55 thinking the U.S. economy is getting worse. Only about one-quarter of the public is confident that President Obama and Congress can fix the financial crisis.

Most adults (53%) rate their financial position as only “satisfactory,” with 32% saying it’s “poor,” and over one-third of adults (34%) have less savings now than they did last year.

Ninety percent of the respondents are concerned with current unemployment levels. Sixty-two percent indicated they are very concerned for their own job security. Parents are also very worried about how their children will fare, with 91% reporting concern about the economic outlook for their kids’ generation and 92% reporting concern over future job opportunities for their children. 

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About one-third of adults plan to support their kids until they finish college, but over half admit to not having any college savings for their children. Of those who do have their children’s college savings in place, 22% have used them for other expenditures such as groceries and mortgage/rent payments. Seven percent admit they used their child’s college funds on vacations and shopping.

Parents, especially moms and younger parents, are optimistic about their kids’ future financial well-being; 45% believe their kids will be better off than they are. However, 43% worry that their kids will not be able to afford to send their own children to college.

“The grind-it-out recovery continues. The underlying trends are moving in a positive direction, and, in many instances, are better than most people think and expect. But there's an overwhelming sense of fragility,” said Daniel Gross, economics editor at Yahoo! Finance. “As the mood sours, the U.S. economy continues to grind its way slowly, even if many people feel as though the recession hasn’t ended.”

Yahoo! partnered with Ipsos OTX MediaCT to conduct the Yahoo! Finance Survey in September of 2011. The survey included 1,500 respondents between the ages of 18 to 64 throughout the U.S.