Nearly half of Americans expect to work until they die, as inflation, debt and rising household costs intensify fears that retirement is becoming unaffordable.
A WalletHub survey released at the end of August found that 43% of respondents believed they would never stop working. Nearly two in five said thinking about retirement made them anxious, while 29% expected to rely on family members for financial support after leaving work.
Retirement insecurity has been a longstanding concern in the United States. Gallup has recorded a majority of Americans worrying about having insufficient retirement savings every year since 2001, making it the country’s leading financial concern ahead of medical expenses and other money worries.
But the pressure has sharpened as inflation has returned to the centre of household finances. The average price of regular petrol reached $4.27 a gallon, after rising by 13 cents in a week, while ground beef cost an average of $6.89 a pound in July, up 9.4% on a year earlier.
An August report by the National Institute on Retirement Security found that 61% of Americans were concerned they would not achieve financial security in retirement. Among them, 73% cited inflation as a contributing factor and 62% pointed to market volatility.
Confidence among workers has also weakened. The Employee Benefit Research Institute’s 2026 Retirement Confidence Survey found that the proportion who believed they would have enough money to retire comfortably had fallen by six percentage points to 61%.
Debt puts retirement saving under pressure
Debt is further limiting the ability to save. In the National Institute on Retirement Security report, 74% of respondents said debt was a problem and 77% said it prevented them from saving enough for retirement.
More than half of those questioned by WalletHub, 53%, said paying off debt was more important than making retirement contributions. Nearly four in 10 Americans approaching their 60s do not have a retirement account.
Retirement benefits remain a significant consideration for those in work. The National Institute on Retirement Security said 75% of workers viewed them as a very or extremely important factor when assessing a job, while 41% said they had become more important over the past year.
The wider outlook is similarly bleak. Four out of five Americans believe the country is facing a retirement crisis, compared with 67% in 2020, and half of WalletHub’s respondents said a comfortable retirement was unrealistic for the average person.
Thasunda Brown Duckett, chief executive of TIAA, has described America’s retirement shortfall of $4 trillion as “a real crisis”, warning that about 40% of Americans risk running out of money.
Some older Americans are continuing to work by choice. Almost 20% of people aged 65 and over are employed, nearly twice the proportion recorded 35 years ago. For many others, however, the prospect of working indefinitely is a source of anxiety rather than fulfilment.
Newer financial and technological developments are adding to the uncertainty. Some 53% of Americans oppose employers offering cryptocurrency in workplace retirement schemes, while 77% regard it as risky. Nearly half, 45%, are uncomfortable with artificial intelligence being used to provide financial advice, despite a majority having used the technology.
“Americans are telling us that retirement security is becoming harder to achieve as they struggle with the affordability of everyday life. Housing, healthcare, debt and other expenses are competing with the need to save for retirement,” Dan Doonan, executive director of the National Institute on Retirement Security, said in the report.
“At the same time, Americans are confronting new questions about AI and cryptocurrency as the retirement landscape becomes increasingly complex,” he added.
