Goldman survey: Share increasing retirement savings falls to 39% from 55%

Retirement preparedness has stopped being a question of whether workers can get into a plan, according to an insights report built on the 2026 Goldman Sachs Asset Management Survey, released today under the title The New Economics of Retirement: Making Every Dollar Saved Work Harder. The obstacle is everything else in the budget. PLANADVISER reported that the share of respondents who increased their retirement savings fell to 39% this year from 55% in 2025, while the share who reduced them rose to 14% from 8%, a squeeze the report traces to housing, healthcare, education, caregiving and day-to-day living costs competing with saving.

The barriers respondents named are stubborn and specific. Housing costs and everyday living expenses each drew 31% of respondents as the challenges most affecting their ability to save, and debt payments drew 27%. Which bill bites first depends on age. Housing ranked as the greatest challenge for 37% of Gen Z and 36% of Millennials, almost double the worry expressed by Boomers, while daily expenses pressed harder on the older cohorts, named by 37% of Gen X and 33% of Boomers. Medical costs ran through all four groups, cited by 25% of Millennials, 23% of Gen Z and Boomers, and 20% of Gen X.

Confidence fell on the same track. The share reporting their savings were on track or better dropped to 66% from 75% among Gen Z, 61% from 74% among Millennials and 60% from 69% among Boomers, while Gen X posted the lowest reading of the four, 49%, down from 58%. Those two sets of numbers describe the same household from different sides. Fewer people are putting more away, and Gen X is both the least confident cohort and the one where routine bills top the list of obstacles, which suggests the retirement conversation for that group starts with the monthly budget rather than the contribution rate.

Chris Ceder, Goldman Sachs' senior retirement strategist, told a media briefing that retirement security today takes more than telling people to save more, and that the next generation of retirement solutions has to stretch each saved dollar further and make it hold up under the pressure of ordinary life.

What the survey gives an adviser is an order of questioning. Start with the fixed costs: rent or a mortgage for younger clients, recurring bills and medical expenses for older ones. The savings rate then becomes an output to manage rather than a pledge to extract each January, and the 2025 baselines show how quickly it can move when the rest of the budget tightens. The 39% and the 14% also mark the edges of what this data can say. Whether the people who cut back did so for a season or reset their expectations for good is not something a survey settles, and the useful answer comes from a client's own numbers rather than the generational average.