59% Report Sufficient Retirement Nest Egg, per Transamerica
Surveyed pre-retirees had a median of $56,000 in their retirement accounts, yet on average thought $500,000 was needed in retirement.
Two in three adults believe they will have a comfortable retirement, according to a report from the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies, a figure that has stayed steady since 2020.
Transamerica’s first review of its last six annual surveys, “Life and Money: Retirement Security in the USA,” found slight improvements in optimism among respondents. Those who felt they were currently building or had built a large enough nest egg went up to 59% in 2025, from 55% in 2020. Among retirees, the number increased to 69% in 2025, from 65% in 2020.
However, the study found that far less than the average of $500,000 that 2025 pre-retiree respondents thought was needed in retirement. That disparity was echoed in 62% of respondents in 2025 who said they would not save enough from their earnings to meet their needs in retirement.
Means of Saving
Overall, Transamerica found that 69% of respondents in 2025 saved for retirement through a workplace 401(k) or similar plan, including 81% of employed respondents, 64% of self-employed respondents, 52% of surveyed students, 42% of surveyed homemakers and just 26% of unemployed respondents.
Among surveyed workers, 75% said their employer offered an employee-funded retirement plan and 37% said their employer offered a company-funded plan such as a defined benefit pension plan or a cash balance plan. Only 15% of employed workers indicate that their employer does not offer any retirement benefits.
An average of 80% of respondents said they contributed to their workplace retirement plan, adding a median of 10% of their annual salary. However, 24% were only contributing between 1% to 5% of their annual salary.
Among self-employed respondents, 76% said they were saving for retirement, but only 41% were consistently saving. More than half (58%) of pre-retiree respondents said they had retirement savings outside of their current employer’s plan. The most common methods of saving outside of work retirement plans were bank accounts (63%), 401(k)s and similar plans (45%), individual retirement accounts (35%), brokerage accounts (35%) and life insurance policies (28%).
While budgeting was the most common financial activity in which respondents reported engaging, fewer than half said they were budgeting on a regular basis. Only 23% of respondents reported having a written financial retirement strategy and 31% said they had worked with a professional financial adviser. While 36% of respondents said they had estimated their retirement needs based on their current living expenses, only 13% had used a retirement calculator and 10% had received an estimate from a financial adviser.
When it comes to improving finances, Catherine Collinson, CEO and president of TCRS and the Transamerica Institute, says “incremental steps over the course of a life can, in their totality, have a tremendous effect.” She equates the process to reaching a healthy weight and level of exercise, including the possibility of initial inertia.
“I went over a year without getting on the scale, and I knew there was a problem because my clothes weren’t fitting. But the longer I waited, the worse it got,” she says. “Know where you stand, and then you know what your options are. Some are more doable than others, but it’s forward momentum.”
Collinson takes heart that when respondents were asked which words they associate with retirement, 87% of respondents included positive words, compared with 38% who included negative ones. Sixty percent equated retirement with “freedom,” 54% said “enjoyment” and 41% said “stress-free.”
The report makes 10 recommendations each for Americans, for employers and for policymakers on ways to strengthen retirement outcomes and enhance retirement security in the U.S.
Transamerica will release subsequent reports with demographic breakdowns of the surveys from 2020 through 2025, according to Collinson.
The Harris Poll conducted an online survey on behalf of TCRS with 10,015 U.S. adults between September 16 and October 17, 2025. In all, 60,236 respondents took part in Transamerica’s six annual surveys between 2020 and 2025. The 2025 survey was the 26th annual retirement survey from Transamerica.