Finance

45% of Generation X is not confident about their retirement

Published

4 weeks ago

March 28, 2025

Ramsey Solutions financial expert George Kamel weighs in on Americans working past retirement age and provides advice for investors.

As Generation X continues getting closer to retirement, some have less than rosy views about their retirement prospects, according to a recently-released study from Fidelity Investments.

Fidelity Investments found in the latest edition of its annual “State of Retirement Planning” study that 45% of Gen Xers – those between the ages of 44 and 59 – reported feeling they were “not confident” in their ability to retire “when and how they want.”

Meanwhile, 53% felt confident they could do so.

A person puts money into a retirement savings jar. (iStock / iStock)

“Gen X is most likely to be what we call the sandwich generation right now,” Fidelity Investments Vice President of Retirement Offerings Rita Assaf told FOX Business. “They are caring for both children and aging parents, as well as preparing for retirement. That’s pretty costly.”

“They’re also at a time where higher cost of living, so if they’re helping with children, they most likely have kids in college or maybe they just finished college, and those costs have been much higher,” she continued. “Their day-to-day expenses are much higher. And we also know with aging parents, the healthcare and long-term care costs associated with that as well.”

Assaf said Gen X being poised to be the first “401(K) generation” has also driven those figures.

“Current retirees are primarily using still pensions as their primary way to fund their retirement savings, but Gen X, I think our study found 61% will be leveraging 401(K)s and IRAs and individual savings vehicles for retirement, so that’s a big difference as well,” she noted.

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Compared to last year’s study, Gen X confidence in retiring “when and how they want” dropped 16 percentage points, something that Assaf linked to higher cost of living and members of the generation moving nearer to retirement age.

She said the survey “really highlighted the fact that with higher cost of living, there’s a bit of general concern that ‘will my retirement savings last’?”

Gen X “notably hold the most negative retirement outlook” among the four generations included in the study, according to Fidelity Investments.

The study found Gen Z and Millennials felt the most confident about retiring “on their own terms,” at 75% and 71%, respectively. Meanwhile, 68% of Baby Boomers reported they were confident.

For Gen X, juggling children, aging parents and higher costs of living have played into that. Assaf also said that “anxiety tends to raise as you get close” to retirement.

Younger generations like Gen Z and Millennials “still have a long time-horizon so they’re actually feeling more confident” and “have more time on their hands to save more and invest and reap the benefits of compound earnings,” according to Assaf.

Overall, 67% of those in their retirement planning years felt positively when it came to retiring “when and how they want,” Fidelity Investments said.

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The study was based on a survey that involved over 2,000 “adult financial decision makers” with a minimum of one investment account.

Socking away sufficient money, inflation and high costs of living, striking the balance of covering expenses now versus saving for retirement and figuring out the amount of funds needed for retirement were among the issues respondents identified as those posing the most challenge, according to the study.

Closeup of a senior man’s hand calculating bills at home (iStock / iStock)

Meanwhile, among current retirees, the Golden Years were “going as planned” for 72%, the study reported. A similar share – 70% – also felt their retirement planning set them up sufficiently.

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When it came to retirement income, 77% of retirees pointed to Social Security as their top source, according to the study. Behind that was pensions, at 48%, and personal savings, at 41%.

A retired couple walks arm in arm on the beach. (Annette Riedl/picture alliance via Getty Images / Getty Images)

“Planning does not stop at retirement,” Assaf told FOX Business. “You have to keep evolving your planning, even when you’re in retirement.”

The savings of seven in 10 retirees have taken a hit from the rising cost of living, the survey said.

The Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies found in an August 2024 report that the median age of retirement for middle-class retirees was 62.

Americans think $1.46 million is the amount of money necessary to experience a comfortable retirement, according to a study released by Northwestern Mutual last year.

Finance

More Americans buy groceries with buy now, pay later loans

Published

3 hours ago

April 26, 2025

Business Finance News

People shop for produce at a Walmart in Rosemead, California, on April 11, 2025.

Frederic J. Brown | Afp | Getty Images

A growing number of Americans are using buy now, pay later loans to buy groceries, and more people are paying those bills late, according to new Lending Tree data released Friday.

The figures are the latest indicator that some consumers are cracking under the pressure of an uncertain economy and are having trouble affording essentials such as groceries as they contend with persistent inflation, high interest rates and concerns around tariffs.

In a survey conducted April 2-3 of 2,000 U.S. consumers ages 18 to 79, around half reported having used buy now, pay later services. Of those consumers, 25% of respondents said they were using BNPL loans to buy groceries, up from 14% in 2024 and 21% in 2023, the firm said.

Meanwhile, 41% of respondents said they made a late payment on a BNPL loan in the past year, up from 34% in the year prior, the survey found.

Lending Tree’s chief consumer finance analyst, Matt Schulz, said that of those respondents who said they paid a BNPL bill late, most said it was by no more than a week or so.

“A lot of people are struggling and looking for ways to extend their budget,” Schulz said. “Inflation is still a problem. Interest rates are still really high. There’s a lot of uncertainty around tariffs and other economic issues, and it’s all going to add up to a lot of people looking for ways to extend their budget however they can.”

“For an awful lot of people, that’s going to mean leaning on buy now, pay later loans, for better or for worse,” he said.

He stopped short of calling the results a recession indicator but said conditions are expected to decline further before they get better.

“I do think it’s going to get worse, at least in the short term,” said Schulz. “I don’t know that there’s a whole lot of reason to expect these numbers to get better in the near term.”

The loans, which allow consumers to split up purchases into several smaller payments, are a popular alternative to credit cards because they often don’t charge interest. But consumers can see high fees if they pay late, and they can run into problems if they stack up multiple loans. In Lending Tree’s survey, 60% of BNPL users said they’ve had multiple loans at once, with nearly a fourth saying they have held three or more at once.

“It’s just really important for people to be cautious when they use these things, because even though they can be a really good interest-free tool to help you kind of make it from one paycheck to the next, there’s also a lot of risk in mismanaging it,” said Schulz. “So people should tread lightly.”

Lending Tree’s findings come after Billboard revealed that about 60% of general admission Coachella attendees funded their concert tickets with buy now, pay later loans, sparking a debate on the state of the economy and how consumers are using debt to keep up their lifestyles. A recent announcement from DoorDash that it would begin accepting BNPL financing from Klarna for food deliveries led to widespread mockery and jokes that Americans were struggling so much that they were now being forced to finance cheeseburgers and burritos.

Over the last few years, consumers have held up relatively well, even in the face of persistent inflation and high interest rates, because the job market was strong and wage growth had kept up with inflation — at least for some workers.

Earlier this year, however, large companies including Walmart and Delta Airlines began warning that the dynamic had begun to shift and they were seeing cracks in demand, which was leading to worse-than-expected sales forecasts.