The US Retirement Crisis: The Gap Between Funding and Service Delivery.
The American website Axios, referring to the increase in the retirement age in the United States, wrote: The country is not prepared to face this crisis.
According to the report, older people in the United States are living longer than the previous generation and are facing an unknown and less secure version of retirement. Many of them, and even American politicians, have not yet come to terms with this new reality.
According to a report by the American financial services company Morningstar, about 45% of Americans will face a shortfall in their retirement funds if they retire at the age of 65.
The full retirement age in the United States, which has gradually increased, is now 67.
In this country, retirees on fixed incomes are facing increasing living costs. The medical costs they pay out of pocket are increasing, the cost of home care is increasing more than three times faster than inflation, and a growing portion of the elderly spend more than a third of their income on housing costs.
Pensions in the United States were once a regular, expected source of income for retirees for the rest of their lives. For the Silent Generation (those born between 1925 and 1942) and older generations, they were a boon that is now disappearing.
According to the National Institute of Retirement Security, only about 14 percent of people between the ages of 45 and 60 have plans for their retirement.
And there are wide disparities in retirement preparedness. According to a report released in November, workers who earn more than $150,000 a year spend about 13 times more on their retirement than those who earn less than $50,000.
About 56 million Americans age 65 and older are receiving Social Security benefits, according to federal government figures.
Low-income workers rely on these benefits. A 2025 survey found that Social Security will be the primary source of income for retirees with household incomes of less than $50,000.
A 20 to 25 percent cut in Social Security benefits could have a devastating impact on retirees who rely on them, said Christi Martin Rodriguez, president of the National Institute of Pensions. Sixty-one percent of current recipients say losing even half of that amount would not allow them to survive financially.
For decades, U.S. experts have warned of a retirement crisis in the country. “We are witnessing one of those crises right now,” Andrew Biggs, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute, told Axios.
“The real retirement crisis is the government’s,” he added, referring to the gaps in the U.S. Social Security budget.
Axios noted that Americans are pushing back their retirement age as much as possible until such gaps are closed, but the future of retirement in the United States remains bleak.