Gen Xers are just not ready, and they know it.
According to a new study from the Insured Retirement Institute, Gen Xers are not only deeply pessimistic about retirement but they're also poorly prepared.
In "(Don't You) Forget About Means: Third Biennial Study on Retirement Readiness of Generation X" from IRI, researchers found that only 24 percent of respondents are highly confident that they'll have enough money to support themselves throughout retirement.
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To determine what "enough" is, IRI considered how much an individual would need to purchase a deferred income annuity that would generate enough annual retirement income to fill in the gap between the average Social Security benefit and average expenditures for a retiree.
Considering that overall, more than a third of the group have nothing saved toward that goal, maybe it should be surprising that nearly a quarter are so confident—especially since 58 percent haven't even tried to figure out how much they need to save.
In addition, 34 percent of that group are not taking into account the potential toll healthcare costs could take on those retirement balances—something that could upset all their plans.
Economic satisfaction among Gen Xers has fallen over the past five years, with just six out of 10 feeling satisfied from an economic standpoint.
That's down from more than eight in 10 in 2011. And 58 percent believe they won't retire till age 65, or even later—with 24 percent planning to work till at least age 70.
There's one thing they may be a trifle optimistic about, though—what they'd do if they ran out of money during retirement. Sixty-five percent say they'd go back to work if that happened, and 60 percent said they'd scale back and try to live on just Social Security.
Considering how many people end up retiring earlier than they planned, whether because of ill health, unexpected job loss (or the inability to find a job) or the need to provide care for a family member, and how many people (particularly women) who live in poverty during retirement, both of those "plans" could be pretty unrealistic.
Half of Gen X respondents are turning their thoughts toward retirement in a serious way, saying that saving enough for retirement is their top financial concern. But they've got a long way to go before they get there, since only 8 percent have enough saved for retirement.
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