How Much Have You Saved For Retirement?

If you have been keeping up with the news, you may have read a recent headline that says something to the effect that "43% of Americans have saved less than $10k for retirement". The original source of this headline is the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI). For their study, the institute surveyed 1,153 individuals (902 workers and 251 retirees) age 25 and older in the United States by random phone call.

I have extracted the relevant table from page 16 of the report titled "The 2010 Retirement Confidence Survey".

This figure shows total savings and investment reported by workers (among those who provided a response) and does not include the value of their primary residence or defined benefit plans. Some of the commonly quoted statistics from this report are:

27% of American workers reported having less than $1,000 set aside for retirement.
43% of American workers reported having less than $10,000 set aside for retirement.
54% of American workers reported having less than $25,000 set aside for retirement.

The entire report can be found here.

I thought that this issue of retirement savings would be a good topic for a new poll: "How much have you saved for Retirement?" Please participate by selecting an answer in the sidebar of my blog. I hope to review the results at a future date. As always, anonymous comments are welcome on PFStock.com.

PFS