The study looked at "the relationship between a household's subjective financial assessment and its objective financial condition," and asked interview subjects how satisfied they were with their current personal financial condition. 

It used "measures of concern" that included the day-to-day worries of unemployment, difficulty covering expenses, heavy debt and the inability to access $2,000. It also explored "distant" concerns of no health insurance, no life insurance, no retirement plan, no college savings (it discounted individuals without dependent children for this one) and an underwater mortgage. 

Then, adjusting for respondents' financial status, financial literacy and a number of other factors, it used regression analysis "to sort out the strength of the relationships between day-to-day and distant concerns and financial satisfaction." 

The regression analysis indicated that the effects of the day-to-day worries were "considerably larger" than those of the distant concerns — by a factor of 10 to 1.

When analyzing the results of those who were financially better off or who were more financially literate to see whether day-to-day worries weighed as heavily on them as it did for the overall group of respondents, only the financially literate showed a statistically significant difference — but it was a small one, "only 0.3 to 0.6 units on the 10-point scale of financial satisfaction."

The study said that finding reflected what it described as "weak support for the notion that financial literacy will increase households' focus on long-run financial issues."

The study's conclusion?

"Households, by themselves, cannot be expected to devote much effort to addressing long-term saving goals. These results suggest a need to reduce reliance on individual decision-making by making it both easy and automatic for individuals to save."

In other words, plan sponsors and policymakers could do more to help participants, as well as those not saving yet.