More than one-third of Americans lack retirement savings, and many of those who are saving aren’t putting enough away, a new survey shows.
More than 25 percent of those aged 50 to 64 don’t have any
retirement savings at all, the Bankrate.com survey found.
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“What concerns me most is the high percentage of people that haven't started saving for retirement," Greg McBride, CFA, Bankrate's chief financial analyst, said on the organization’s website. "Many of those that are saving aren't saving all that much."
The survey did find that about 10 percent of those surveyed starting saving for retirement while in their teens, which Gail Cunningham, of the National Foundation for Credit Counseling, told Bankrate.com was a “pleasant surprise.”
Twenty-three percent said they began saving in their 20s and 14 percent in their 30s, the survey found.
"I have had people tell me that they love their job and intend to work until they drop, thus there is no need for them to save," Cunningham told Bankrate.com. "However, these people are not considering the potential of a job loss or medical issue that prevents them from working."
McBride
told The Los Angeles Times that people have become more aware of the necessity of saving for retirement because of concerns about the stability of Social Security.
“The burden for retirement savings is increasingly upon us as individuals, and people are aware of that,” he said.
Time helps considerably in building up savings, and McBride said on Bankrate.com that sooner is better to get started.
"The younger you are, the more of an ally time becomes," he said. "The power of compounding is most evident over long periods of time, and having a longer period of time for your retirement savings to grow and compound makes today's contributions much more impactful.”
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