Retirement.
It’s personal.
3 big things
Common barriers
The challenges workers face in saving for retirement are shared.
Unique stories
The paths they take to get there are personal.
Concern for income
And everyone is worried about outliving their nest eggs.
BlackRock // Retirement Summit
Ep101_90s_FineCut
04/05/24
I think retirement’s very personal.
It’s gonna look different for everybody.
It’s personal to me, it’s personal to my mom, it’s personal to those around me.
Everybody has their own plan, their own way.
How everyone writes their own retirement story is unique to them.
Take one.
TITLES: BlackRock
TITLES: Retirement. It’s personal.
I want to be able to keep doing what I love: being a firefighter, EMT, being outdoors, hunting, fishing, hiking.
I want to travel as far and wide as I can. That’s my number one.
We love being outdoors. Maybe get a little place in the mountains where I can ski in the winter.
Just relaxing, I’m exhausted.
Staying active, we’d like to be able to do more things that we love.
Spending time with my grandchildren and watching them grow.
I would pretty much say travel keeps me from saving because as much as I want to save, you don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow so you just want to take that trip. But at the same time, things have changed and now I’m in a relationship and we’re, like, starting to get serious about planning for the future… And so, trying to be a bit more responsible.
Right now, I’m currently the only one in my family saving for retirement. I do have quite a span of time still to let the money compound, to keep contributing, but in my job there’s a real risk of injury. It worries me a little bit, I’m not gonna lie. You never know what’s gonna happen. There’s always pressure around the unknown.
We’ve been really diligent about our 401ks and so, if everything goes to plan, we’ll be ready to retire in 3 to 4 years. But we also help out with my in-laws and I can envision a world where we might get hit with some expenses that we weren’t planning for.
I think everybody wishes that they had saved more money. In our case our retirement came sooner than we had expected, but I think the trick is to manage the money that we have to last for the time that we’re here. I’m planning on a long life.
I’ve built a 401k for 15 years and now as a small business owner it’s a lot harder to know what to do with our money because some years you might not do so well and some years you might do great with your business. I think about my employees too and how to give them the tools to retire and it isn’t easy for us. Watching my parents in their 70s having to go to work every day, I definitely don’t want to be like that.
It’s unbelievable how quickly time goes. I want to be able to preserve the money that I have on hand and just enjoy life, so I just need to know and understand, how can I have this money outlive me? There’s a lot of fire left in this soul.
TITLES: BlackRock
TITLES: Read on Retirement
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The state of retirement, according to real people
We talked to savers and retirees who are all taking different paths to retirement -- and found that while there are a million ways to spend retirement, everyone wants to spend it feeling secure.
We focus a tremendous amount of energy on helping people live longer lives. But not even a fraction of that effort is spent helping people afford those extra years.
There’s more beneath the surface
When markets rally, workplace savers tend to feel more on track for retirement.
are less optimistic as they look at the larger picture.
reveals confidence gaps around saving and spending.
Understanding who is saving, and how
BlackRock dug into the data by factors like generation, gender and circumstances, looking at the complex individual choices Americans face when saving for retirement to see the full story.
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Gen Z
The youngest generation in the workforce is already thinking about retirement saving – and worried about their future retirement income. 69% worry about outliving their retirement savings, and they’re turning to their plan for help.
Millennials
With added responsibilities and expenses, including debt, many are trying to balance savings for both the near- and long-term. 72% say they are very likely to stay with their current employer if they matched contributions to their retirement plan for paying off student loans.
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Gen X
With retirement just around the corner, they’re both the most likely generation to report saving consistently for retirement and the least likely to feel on track. 74% agree they won’t have the income certainty in retirement that retirees used to have.
Baby Boomers
Whether close to retirement or already there, this generation is focused on the need for retirement income. 85% of those who are already retired say it makes a bigger difference than they thought it would.
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Independent Savers
47% of those without a workplace plan feel on-track to retire versus 68% of those with access. They save for retirement when they can but stand to benefit from the resources savers with workplace plans typically have access to.
Gender
When it comes to retirement confidence, the biggest disparity we saw in the numbers wasn’t between generations, it was gender. The gap is significant: 59% of women feel on-track for retirement versus 75% of men.
Stand-out stats
Across the board, savers want secure retirement income solutions – and employers recognize the need to act.
What’s next?
Download the 2024 BlackRock Read on Retirement™ report
