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Pew: More Americans concerned about retirement financing

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Betsi Fores The Daily Caller News Foundation
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With Social Security set to become insolvent by 2033, Americans are more worried about financing retirement today than they were at the end of the recession in 2009, according to a new Pew survey.

“About four-in-ten adults (38%) say they are ‘not too’ or ‘not at all’ confident that they will have enough income and assets for their retirement, up from 25% in a Pew Research survey conducted in late February and March of 2009,” Pew research center found.

In 2009, Pew found the “gloomy boomers,” baby boomers in their mid-50s, were the most concerned with outliving their retirement savings. Today, those in their mid-30s  are most concerned about retirement, most likely the sons and daughters of the baby boomer generation.

Data from the Federal Reserve board suggests that “this [demographic] is also the age group that has suffered the steepest losses in household wealth in recent years.”

This news comes on the heels of a survey that found that 40 percent of Americans have $500 or less in savings. The same survey also found that 54 percent of respondents do not have a savings plan in place and 45 percent are afraid they’ll never be able to save.

“This is about life skills,” the president and CEO of the United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey Jill Michal said.

“It’s not just about arithmetic and reading, but we have to be able to teach the next generation that we have to be able to save for our own futures and we have to be able to save for those risks that could come our way.”

There is a similar lack of knowledge about acquiring debt, specifically student debt. Jon Marcus of the Henchinger Report, an independent education news website, writes of the problems with savings and taking out debt.

“Students appear to know so little about the repercussions of the loans they take out, in fact, that some universities are starting to require them to undergo financial-literacy training,” Marcus writes.

Personal savings as a percent of income was just 3.7 percent in August, down from 4.1 percent in July, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis.

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