The Attainment Gap

Workers are clearly ill prepared to deal with their retirement needs. Of those that have calculated what they will need in retirement over 70% said they would need $250,000+ for retirement (chart below). If only 10% have over $250,000 saved (table above) and 70% say they will need at least that much, then we have a big attainment gap.

To close this gap we need to determine how much we might need in retirement. The easiest and most common way to do this is by utilizing a retirement calculator. With such a big disparity, it is not surprising to us that less than half of workers (42%) have actually tried to calculate how much money they will need to save for a comfortable retirement (chart below).

Maybe one reason people don’t do a retirement calculator sooner rather than later is because they believe they have more time until retirement. Half of workers expect to retire when they are 65, however, do to various reasons (health problems, disabilities, company downsizing, family issues, and skill set) most of us will retire earlier than expected. In fact, according the EBRI the median age of actual retirement is 61 compared to the median age of expected retirement of 65 (chart below).