43% of Americans expect to work until they die — Fortune
In the United States, 43% of surveyed Americans said they expect to work until they die, according to a WalletHub survey released at the end of August. Another 39% of respondents feel anxious when they think about retirement, while 29% expect to rely on financial support from their family after they stop working, Fortune reports.
Inflation and debt
Fears of not having enough money in retirement are not new in the United States: according to Gallup, this issue has remained Americans' leading financial fear since 2001. A new wave of concern coincided with rising prices for basic goods. According to AAA, the average price of a gallon of regular gasoline this week was $4.27, up 13 cents over seven days. The average price of a pound of ground beef reached $6.89 in July, 9.4% higher than a year earlier, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
An August report by the National Institute on Retirement Security states that 61% of Americans are concerned about possibly lacking financial security in retirement. Of them, 73% cited inflation as a factor, while 62% cited fluctuations in financial markets. According to the 2026 Retirement Confidence Survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, the share of workers confident they will have enough money for a comfortable retirement fell by six percentage points to 61%.
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Debt also limits the ability to save. In the NIRS study, 74% of respondents called debt a problem, and 77% said it prevents them from building sufficient retirement savings. According to WalletHub, for 53% of respondents, paying off debt is more important than contributing to retirement accounts.
Retirement benefits are important to workers
Among current workers, 75% consider retirement benefits a very or extremely important criterion when choosing a job, while 41% said their importance has increased over the past year. At the same time, 80% of Americans believe the country is experiencing a retirement crisis, compared with 67% who said so in 2020. Half of WalletHub survey participants do not consider it realistic for the average American to retire comfortably.
NIRS Executive Director Dan Doonan noted that spending on housing, healthcare, debt, and other needs competes with the need to set money aside for retirement. At the same time, nearly 20% of Americans aged 65 and older work, almost twice as many as 35 years ago. For some people, continuing to work is a voluntary choice, but for others, the prospect of never ending their working life causes anxiety.
