U.S. politicians looking for a unifying theme amid the country’s starkest political divisions since the Civil War may want to consider focusing on retirement security.
That is one takeaway from a survey BlackRock released this week, the first of a new retirement policy series the giant money manager is launching this year.
Among 1,000 registered voters surveyed between Aug. 13 and Aug. 18, nine out of ten of agreed that there’s “a retirement savings crisis in America,” with roughly three quarters anticipating not being able to maintain their standard of living in retirement or cover long-term care costs such as nursing home expenses.
Meanwhile, at a moment when the country’s political divide seems to be growing inexorably wider, the survey pointed to an unusual degree of bipartisan – or perhaps tri-partisan – agreement across the U.S. political spectrum: Among respondents, 93% of registered Republicans, 94% of Independents and 86% of Democrats agree that there is a retirement crisis.
Yet another finding: only 13% of the registered voters surveyed report thinking that elected officials are focused on helping people like them plan and save for a secure retirement.
The portion of respondents reporting feeling good about their prospects came to just over a fifth of the total, with 22% saying they are very confident they’ll have enough money in retirement.
At the other end of the spectrum, one in six respondents say they have no plans to retire, largely because they can’t afford to. Respondents, on average, said they’re looking to retire at 64.
Registered voters surveyed pegged the average savings they’ll need for retirement at $2.2 million, with a majority admitting they’ve made little progress in reaching that goal. Just over half said they currently have less than $50,000 in retirement savings, with three-fifths of that cohort – or 30% of all respondents – reporting no retirement savings at all.
In addition to that 30% with no savings and a further 21% with less than $50,000, the survey showed 15% of respondents with between $50,000 and $150,000; 19% with $150,000 to $500,000 and 15% with $500,000 or more.
BlackRock’s report on the survey offered no details on the ages of the 1,000 respondents, making it difficult to determine whether progress in building up retirement savings pools has been merely dismal or catastrophic. A spokeswoman for the firm wasn’t able to offer further details.
The report did, however, note that the 66% of respondents with less than $150,000 in retirement savings included 54% of the Gen X cohort of respondents between 44 and 59 years old.
The survey showed women aged 18 to 34 topping the list of cohorts with no retirement savings, at 53%, followed by 42% of women of color, 41% of 18 to 34 year olds and 40% of Black Americans.
Meanwhile, the survey showed only 39% of respondents reported having more than $10,000 in emergency savings, with 26% reporting no readily available savings at all.
