Retirement Confidence Survey. Planning for the future used to feel like a straightforward path: work for a few decades, build a nest egg, and step away into a comfortable, full retirement. Today, that journey looks far more like a hurdle course.

Between volatile inflation, shifting job landscapes, and rapid advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), everyday savers are navigating unprecedented financial waters. A new retirement confidence survey sheds light on how workers are responding—revealing a striking divide between savings optimism and real-world uncertainty.

Here is what the latest research tells us about the state of American retirement security and how to adjust your strategy to stay on track.

The Great Retirement Split: Confident Yet Skeptical

60 percent of non-retirees are confident they will have enough savings to retire from their primary career on schedule, yet 50% are skeptical they will ever be able to fully retire.

In short, people feel relatively good about their ability to reach traditional saving milestones, but they aren’t convinced those milestones will buy them complete financial independence.

This gap explains why under 40% of workers expect to continue earning an income post-retirement to fund their lifestyles. For many, “retire” no longer means quitting work cold turkey; it means transitioning to flexible work, passion projects, or part-time gig income.

What Is Draining Worker Confidence?

If savings habits are holding steady, why does the future feel so precarious? Survey respondents pointed to three main headwinds:

1. The Inflation and Cost-of-Living Squeeze

Even when inflation cools off on paper, everyday living expenses remain elevated. Everyday budget pressures mean less disposable cash to throw toward long-term accounts, leaving savers feeling like they are running on a treadmill just to stay in place.

2. A Shrinking Inheritance Safety Net

For previous generations, an inheritance often provided a vital financial cushion later in life. Today, that buffer is evaporating. Among non-retirees who feel behind on their financial goals, a significant proportion attribute it directly to not expecting an inheritance. Without generational wealth to fall back on, modern workers are flying solo.

3. AI and Technological Career Disruption

Emerging technology is no longer just a topic for tech blogs—it has officially entered the retirement conversation. The survey revealed that younger generations are particularly anxious about how artificial intelligence will reshape job stability and earning potential:

When career paths feel unpredictable, mapping out a 30-year retirement plan becomes significantly more challenging.

Adapting Your Financial Plan for an Uncertain Future

If macro forces like AI and inflation are making your retirement timeline feel slippery, advisors recommend taking action on the variables you can control:

Break Big Targets into Micro-Milestones

Looking at a required $1 million or $2 million retirement goal can feel overwhelming, especially early in a career. Breaking your journey into smaller, short-term benchmarks—such as saving your first $10,000, maxing out an employer match, or hitting a 1x salary goal by age 30—makes progress visible and actionable.

Build Agility into Your Portfolio

Rigid, “set-it-and-forget-it” financial plans rarely survive major career changes or volatile market shifts. Schedule regular annual reviews with a professional to rebalance assets, recalibrate risk levels based on market conditions, and make adjustments as your life circumstances evolve.

Start Early to Harness Compound Growth

Time remains the ultimate financial equalizer. Among non-retirees in the study who felt ahead of schedule, 60% credited their success to starting their savings habit early in life. Even small monthly contributions made in your 20s or 30s yield exponentially more power than larger amounts contributed later.

Retirement Confidence Survey. What upsets you about all of these things mentioned?

The Bottom Line

Uncertainty is a permanent feature of the economic landscape, but it doesn’t have to ruin your financial freedom. While economic shifts and artificial intelligence continue to reshape the workforce, focusing on agile planning, early contributions, and manageable goals will keep your retirement vision within reach—no matter what the future holds.

You or your retirement planner should reach out to me (Scott Underwood (205) 908-2993) about how financial planners are using this tool for a multitude of things. Here is a simple one. A man who just bought a million-dollar house came by to see me, and his idea worked perfectly. A Reverse Mortgage would provide just enough to replace his mortgage payment. He had put down 50%. Before we started, he wanted to get a blessing from his Merrill Lynch advisor team in Atlanta. This was 10 years ago, so he had no idea what they would say. They actually told him Great idea. We pull $10,000 a month out of your retirement account for your living expenses. Now, with no mortgage payment, we can only give you $8,000 monthly. This made his retirement account last quite a bit longer. There are so many other reasons and tricks that planners can use.

Before you settle for this Retirement Confidence Survey and get glum, don’t take it; work on a new plan. You may need to retire in a less expensive home, or city, or state. You may use a calculator to find out how far your Social Security income, 401 (k), pensions, and retirement accounts will go. I may be that if you are 5-10 years away, just a little more money in your retirement account may give you the lifestyle. One financial planner has a series where people can tell him their ages, their current cost of living, how much is saved up, and he will tell them something like this. One single person asked if he could retire at 60 on $100,000. He played with the SS amount, told him not to draw SS until age 64 or 65, and he would be fine except he would need to work part-time from 60-62. The money ran out at 85, and then in this plan, he told the man that’s when you get a reverse mortgage.