Worrisome news indeed—81 percent of respondents in a financial wellness assessment said they're not on track to reach their retirement goals.
A study from Financial Finesse found that just 19 percent said they were on track, while the rest fell into three different categories:
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The unknowns: those who have no idea whether they're saving enough, and are overwhelmed by the whole notion.
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The underfunded: those who have run projections and know they're not putting away sufficient money.
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The under-confident: those who are financially on track, but are being derailed by worries over economic and market uncertainties.
The scary thing is that, among those who say they're not on track, more than 75 percent—those "unknowns"—haven't even run an assessment to determine exactly where they are.
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And just 47 percent have taken a risk assessment to learn how they should be investing what they are saving.
Unsurprisingly, the lower their income, the more likely people are to report that they're not on track.
Employees making under $60,000 per year are only half as likely to say they're keeping up with savings goals for a comfortable retirement, compared with people making more than $100,000 a year.
African-Americans, Latinos, and women are all more likely to be in the "not on track" group, with 12 percent of African-Americans, 13 percent of Latinos, and 17 percent of women reporting that they're in good shape and moving toward their goals at the right pace.
Incidentally, Asian-Americans, at 20 percent, Caucasians/whites, at 21 percent, and men, at 24 percent, say they're confident that they're on track to hit income replacement goals.
Millennials, predictably, are having problems; just 17 percent say they're on track, with 53 percent admitting that they have no emergency fund and 28 percent having problems with cash flow.
Those two problems—no emergency fund and poor cash flow—are probably responsible for more loans from retirement plans, more cash-outs when they switch employers, and lower participation in retirement plans in the first place.
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