Retirement Confidence Hits Its Lowest Point Since 2017: What the EBRI Survey Says to Do

Ask a room of people whether they will be okay in retirement and you rarely get a number. You get a pause, a half-laugh, and then something like "I think so, if nothing goes wrong." That pause is exactly what one long-running survey has been measuring for 36 years, and this year the pause got longer.

The 2026 Retirement Confidence Survey from the Employee Benefit Research Institute and Greenwald Research, fielded in January 2026, found worker confidence in having enough money for a comfortable retirement down 6 points to 61%, the lowest since 2017. Retiree confidence fell 5 points to 73%, the lowest since 2015. I am relaying these figures from the published findings; the survey's own report is the place to check the detail.

What is driving this year's drop

The worries people named will not surprise anyone who has bought groceries lately: inflation, debt, health care costs, housing and Social Security. What stands out is that they are not retirement worries in the narrow sense. They are cost-of-living worries that happen to land on the retirement question. If your rent or mortgage and your credit card bill are squeezing today, a retirement twenty years out feels less certain too.

That reading is mine, not the survey's. But it fits how confidence tends to work. People rarely audit a retirement spreadsheet when answering a phone survey; they check how this month feels and extrapolate.

Why retirees feel better than workers

Retirees are 12 points more confident than workers. It is tempting to read that as retirees being better prepared, and for some it is true, but there are quieter explanations too. A retiree already knows their income: a pension, Social Security, a withdrawal schedule. A worker is still forecasting, and forecasts get anxious about everything that could go wrong between now and then.

There is also a selection effect to keep in mind. People who retired and ran into trouble may have gone back to work, so those still answering as retirees can skew toward the ones for whom it is going well. I would not lean hard on that point, but it is a reason not to treat the gap as a pure measure of readiness.

Confidence is not preparedness

This is the part worth sitting with. A confidence survey measures how people feel. It does not measure how much they have saved, how long they will live, or what health care will cost them. The two can drift apart in both directions: someone with a healthy balance who feels dread, and someone with almost nothing who feels fine because they have never run the numbers.

In my first years of working in software, I felt wonderfully confident about retirement, mostly because I had not looked closely. The confidence was real and the evidence for it was not. A drop in the survey could be a sign that people are looking harder and seeing more clearly, which is uncomfortable but not entirely bad news.

Levers within your control

You cannot change inflation. A few things you can change, roughly in order of how much they tend to matter:

Your savings rate. Raising it by even one percentage point, or having it step up automatically each year, compounds more than most clever moves.
When you claim Social Security. Benefits generally grow for each year you delay past your claiming age, up to age 70, so the claiming decision is large. It depends on your health, your spouse and your other income, so run your own numbers at ssa.gov.
High-interest debt. Paying off a card at a high interest rate is a guaranteed return that few investments can match.
Health care planning. If you have access to a health savings account, it is one of the more tax-friendly ways to prepare for medical costs. Know when Medicare begins for you and what it does not cover.
Your working years. Working a year or two longer, or part-time, shortens the span your savings must cover and adds contributions at the same time.

This is general information, not personalized financial advice. A fee-only planner can fit these levers to your actual numbers.

Stress-testing your plan against the survey's worries

The survey named five worries. A useful way to use them is to ask, for each one, what would happen to my plan if this went badly? That is what planners call a stress test, and it is less grim than it sounds, since the point is to find the weak joint while there is time to fix it.

A five-question self-assessment

These mirror the worry categories above. Answer each one honestly, then do the single action beside it.

Inflation: if prices rose faster than I expect for five years, would my plan still hold? Action: look at your expenses and mark what is fixed and what is flexible. Plan on the flexible part absorbing a shock.
Debt: do I carry balances at high interest rates? Action: list each balance and its rate, and point your next extra dollar at the highest one.
Health care: do I know roughly what a bad health year would cost me out of pocket? Action: find your plan's out-of-pocket maximum and check whether you have that much set aside or accessible.
Housing: could I afford where I live on a retirement income, and do I have a plan if I can't? Action: estimate your housing cost at retirement, including taxes, insurance and upkeep, and compare it with your expected income.
Social Security: have I looked at my own statement? Action: create or log into your account on ssa.gov and compare your estimated benefit at different claiming ages.

FAQ

What is the Retirement Confidence Survey?

It is an annual survey run by the Employee Benefit Research Institute and Greenwald Research that asks workers and retirees how confident they feel about having enough money for retirement. The 2026 edition was its 36th.

Does lower confidence mean people are less prepared?

Not necessarily. Confidence measures feelings and expectations, which can move with the news and prices. Preparedness is a matter of savings, income and expenses.

Why are retirees more confident than workers?

Retirees mostly know their income and spending, while workers are still forecasting. Some of the gap may also reflect who stays retired.

What is the single most useful step for a worker?

For most people it is raising the savings rate and automating the increase. It works without relying on willpower every month.

Should I change my investments because of this survey?

A survey about feelings is not a reason to trade. Decisions about your portfolio should follow your goals, time horizon and risk tolerance, ideally with professional guidance.

Maybe the useful thing a confidence number can do is send us back to our own statements, one honest hour at a time.