Skip to main content

You are here

Advertisement

Americans’ Top Saving Goal? Retirement.

A new study finds that American employees’ top financial goal, by far, is to save for retirement.

Saving for retirement is the most common goal among employees across all income levels, ahead of many short-term goals, including eliminating debt and creating an emergency fund. New research from the Financial Wellness Insights series, which targets different monthly themes to help employers and advisors better understand employees, explores the top five financial goals among American employees.

The study also found:


  • The majority of all employees, 56%, said that saving for retirement is a financial goal. While it’s the top goal across all income levels, saving for retirement has a greater relative importance among those with higher incomes.

  • The second most common financial goal was to eliminate debt, chosen by 40% of employees. Eliminating debt was more common among employees with less than $125,000 in annual income and somewhat more common among Millennials.

  • Younger employees and employees with lower incomes tend to favor short-term goals, such as taking a dream vacation. Buying a home was also more popular among younger workers; 68% of Millennials wanted to buy a home, compared to 33% of Gen X-ers and 10% of Baby Boomers.

  • “Investing better” was the fourth most commonly cited goal, noted by 30% of all employees. The importance of those investing intentions also increased slightly with age; 25% of Millennials wanted to invest better, compared with 27% of Gen X-ers and 28% of Baby Boomers.

  • While 29% of all employees wanted to create an emergency fund, the importance of doing so varied only slightly among different income ranges.


There’s no shortage of data lamenting American employees’ failure to save for retirement. While studies have shown that there has been improvement among Americans’ financial well-being and confidence in recent years, discussions of the retirement crisis still loom large.

Our analysis suggests that the problem doesn’t lie with intention. When asked specifically about financial goals, most employees are aware of the importance of retirement planning. Even with the prevalence of competing, short-term concerns, Americans still want to save for retirement.

This is great news for financial advisors. It’s easier to overcome the knowledge gap than to enact a complete mindset shift.

We’ve found that putting employees’ goals at the center of the conversation helps drive employee engagement and action. By equipping employees with the right tools and guidance, advisors can effectively help employees make smarter long-term decisions.

Matt Iverson is the CEO and founder of Retiremap.

Advertisement