Retirement is now part of the affordability crisis. Politicians should pay attention.

By David Conti

Americans are more concerned about retirement than ever, and some of their biggest fears can't be fixed by individual behavior alone

Saving for retirement is increasingly competing with everyday expenses in tight household budgets.

I've been writing about retirement for more than 20 years. I also had the good fortune to spend 17 years at Fidelity Investments, where I learned a lot about saving, investing, retirement income and how people actually make financial decisions.

Along the way, I took many of the steps financial planners and other experts advise to ensure a solid retirement. I saved. I invested. I learned how markets work. I thought about taxes, healthcare costs, Social Security and how long my money might need to last.

But most Americans have not had that luxury. They are working, raising families, paying mortgages, helping aging parents, supporting adult children and trying to keep up with rising everyday costs.

That is why I believe retirement fear has become more than a personal-finance issue. It is now a household-economics policy problem, part of the affordability challenges that were a major focus of the recent midterm elections.

The November Retirement Fear Index, which I created through RetireMentors, rose to a record 126.4, or 26.4% above its baseline. The index tracks 10 major fears among U.S. retirees and preretirees by synthesizing institutional research, news and social attention, and major events.

Several fears are moving higher in parallel, including: outliving savings, inflation and taxes, family caregiving, and market volatility.

The common thread is simple: Too many things are competing for the same household dollar. And some of the biggest fears cannot be solved by individual behavior alone.

Saving for retirement is now in direct competition with households' bills and daily spending. A recent Goldman Sachs retirement survey found that retirement-savings momentum fell from 55% to 39% year over year. It also found that 70% of workers have deferred a major financial goal because of daily expenses, while 66% of preretirees across Gen Z, millennials and Gen X expect to delay retirement because of competing financial priorities.

Social Security will become a major political issue

Social Security is one of the three biggest fears in the index and has one of the highest intensity readings. Is anyone surprised?

The 2026 Social Security Trustees Report says the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance trust fund can pay full scheduled benefits only through 2032. After that, incoming revenue will cover only part of promised benefits if Congress does nothing. Congress last took action on this issue in 1990.

That puts Social Security squarely in the path of the 2028 presidential campaign. Candidates will have to talk about how to fix it. Soon they will come to New Hampshire to fine-tune their stump speeches (and take questions on Social Security from me). Who will have the political capital to fix this? Will we raise taxes? Reduce benefits? Raise the retirement age? Increase the amount of wages subject to Social Security taxes? Or use some combination?

None of those choices would be easy. But avoiding the issue will not make it go away. We have seen in France how explosive pension reform can become when governments wait until the choices get harder.

The U.S. has time to act. But not unlimited time.

Healthcare is still too expensive

Workers with family coverage through their jobs now pay an average of $7,471 a year toward their health-insurance premiums - up 9%, or $621, from last year, according to a note last week from KFF. The total cost of a family plan, counting what employers pay, reached $28,303, up 5%.

For retirees, healthcare and long-term care remain another major retirement fear. Medicare is a huge part of our safety net, but it does not make healthcare cheap. Retirees still face premiums, deductibles, prescription costs, dental bills, vision expenses and potentially enormous long-term-care costs.

For many households, healthcare is becoming one more squeeze on retirement income. And if we continue to live longer, that pressure only grows.

Living longer is a good thing. But financially, it creates another challenge. A retirement that once lasted 10 or 15 years can now last 25 or 30. That means more years of housing, food, insurance and healthcare. It also means more years in which inflation can erode purchasing power. So it is no surprise that fear of outliving savings is rising.

This is bigger than red versus blue

We do have a meaningful social safety net in this country. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, employer retirement and pension plans - they all matter. But those systems are under pressure, and so are the households that depend on them.

There are roughly 100 million Americans who are retired or within roughly a decade of retirement. These people are Democrats, Republicans and independents. They live in cities, suburbs and rural towns.

They do not all agree on taxes, healthcare or the proper size of government. But they share many of the same fears: Will Social Security be there? Can I afford healthcare? Will my savings last? Can I help my family and still retire?

Those are not partisan questions. They are household questions. And that is where I think the national conversation needs to go. We should debate the solutions. We should argue about taxes, benefits, incentives and spending.

But we should also agree on the problem: Too many American households are entering retirement squeezed by costs they cannot fully control. That is no longer just a retirement-planning problem. It is a national household-economics problem.

And it is one we need to start fixing together.

David Conti is a New Hampshire-based financial writer, retirement coach at RetireMentors and creator of the Retirement Fear Index.

-David Conti

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11-09-26 0830ET