Are Americans Giving Up on Traditional Retirement?
Nearly half of working Americans no longer believe they will ever fully stop working. A new national survey has captured a profound shift in how people view the later stages of life, revealing deep skepticism about the classic idea of complete retirement even as many still hope to leave their primary careers on schedule.
According to Thrivent’s 2026 Retirement Expectations Survey, conducted in June by Ipsos among more than 2,000 Americans, 47 percent of non-retirees say they doubt they will ever be able to fully retire. At the same time, 58 percent remain confident they will have enough money to step away from their main job when planned—a figure that held steady from the previous year. The gap between these two numbers tells a clear story: many people still expect to retire from full-time work, but they no longer assume that means never earning another paycheck.
Thirty-six percent of non-retirees already anticipate earning some income after leaving their primary career. Retirement, in other words, is being redefined as a gradual transition rather than a hard stop.
Rising Costs and Everyday Pressures
The biggest immediate obstacle is the cost of living. Nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of non-retirees say they are more focused on their current financial situation than on planning for retirement. High everyday expenses leave little room for long-term saving. Among those who feel behind their peers in retirement planning—35 percent of non-retirees—53 percent blame the high cost of living and 47 percent say they simply do not earn enough to set money aside.
These pressures are not abstract. Inflation, housing costs, and debt continue to squeeze household budgets. The same forces that make it hard to save today also make the idea of decades without earned income feel unrealistic. Many workers report having reduced or paused retirement contributions in recent months simply to cover immediate needs.
Retirees themselves report feeling the strain more sharply than a year earlier. Seventy percent now say inflation has negatively affected their retirement, up from 57 percent in 2025. Political instability and global economic conditions are also cited more frequently as problems. The sense of security that previous generations of retirees often enjoyed appears harder to maintain.
The Shadow of Artificial Intelligence
A newer source of anxiety is artificial intelligence. Half of non-retirees believe that AI changing the nature of work will hurt their retirement prospects. The concern is especially pronounced among younger workers. Sixty-three percent of Gen Z respondents and 59 percent of millennials expect AI-driven job reductions to damage their ability to retire, compared with 49 percent of both Gen X and baby boomers.
Even current retirees are not immune. Twenty-nine percent say AI-related changes in the workforce have already negatively affected their retirement, a sharp rise from 20 percent the year before. The worry is straightforward: if machines replace workers who pay payroll taxes, the funding base for Social Security and Medicare could shrink, while career paths become less predictable for those still building savings.
A Broader Crisis of Confidence
The Thrivent findings fit into a larger pattern of retirement anxiety documented across multiple studies. The Employee Benefit Research Institute’s 2026 Retirement Confidence Survey found that only 61 percent of workers feel confident they will have enough money to live comfortably throughout retirement—a six-percentage-point drop from the previous year. Retiree confidence also slipped. Worries about Social Security, Medicare, health care costs, housing, and debt all contributed to the decline.
Separately, Northwestern Mutual’s 2026 Planning & Progress Study reported that Americans now believe they need $1.46 million to retire comfortably, an increase of more than $200,000 from the year before. Nearly half of respondents say they do not expect to be financially prepared, and a similar share worry they will outlive their savings.
Structural problems compound these individual concerns. Large numbers of workers still lack access to workplace retirement plans, particularly part-time and lower-wage employees. Traditional pensions have largely disappeared from the private sector, leaving most people dependent on 401(k)-style accounts that require consistent contributions and investment discipline over decades. Social Security, while still a critical foundation, faces long-term funding challenges that add another layer of uncertainty.
Redefining What Retirement Means
Financial professionals emphasize that the data do not show Americans abandoning the goal of retirement so much as adjusting its definition. Jason Rogoff, a Thrivent financial advisor, noted that people today face a wider range of questions about work, the economy, and the future than they did only a few years ago. The fundamentals of planning, he argued, remain the same: start where you are, stay flexible, and focus on decisions within your control.
Many experts describe the emerging model as “reduce and delay.” Workers plan to leave their primary careers but expect to continue some form of paid activity—part-time work, consulting, freelancing, or passion projects that generate income. Longer lifespans and better health in older age make this more feasible for some, even as financial necessity drives it for others.
This shift carries consequences for the broader economy. A larger share of older adults remaining in the labor force, even part-time, could help ease labor shortages in certain sectors while also reducing pressure on public benefits. At the same time, it raises questions about workplace design, age discrimination, and the availability of flexible roles that older workers can actually fill.
The survey results arrive at a moment when policymakers continue to debate Social Security’s future, the expansion of automatic retirement savings features, and ways to improve access to workplace plans. Individuals, meanwhile, face the practical challenge of building financial resilience amid competing demands.
Those who feel most secure often share common habits: they started saving early, maintained consistent contributions when possible, and adjusted their plans as circumstances changed. Working with a financial advisor is associated with higher confidence and earlier planned retirement ages in other studies, though access to advice remains uneven.
The classic image of retirement—leaving work entirely in the mid-60s and never looking back—was always more attainable for some groups than others. Today it appears less realistic for a growing portion of the population. Whether this represents a permanent cultural change or a temporary response to high costs and economic uncertainty remains to be seen. What is clear is that many Americans are preparing for a later life that still includes work of some kind, not because they want to abandon rest, but because full financial independence feels increasingly out of reach.
For now, the American retirement dream is being rewritten in real time—less a clean break from work and more a carefully managed transition shaped by necessity, longevity, and technological change.
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