Has The Pandemic Affected The Retirement Mindset?

July 21, 2020

Each year, the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies surveys baby boomers, Gen Xers, and millennials to gauge their perceptions about retiring. The 2020 survey, conducted in April, studied the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and how it may have affected their outlooks.

Overall, 53% of respondents said that their confidence about retiring remained the same during this spring’s economic turbulence. Twenty-three percent indicated they were less confident about their retirement prospects; another 13% said that they had grown more confident. Nearly half (45%) of all respondents believed that they would be able to transition to part-time work en route to retirement; 61% expected that their employers would provide them with full employee benefits, even while working part time. Fifty-two percent of all respondents believed that they would keep working past age 65, and 68% of baby boomers indicated that they planned to work or were working at 65 or later. Fewer baby boomers and Gen Xers (13%) had been laid off this spring compared to millennials (18%). Retirement saving was still the number one financial priority in life for both Gen Xers and baby boomers alike; though, the percentage of respondents saying so declined from the 2019 survey (23% to 20% for Gen Xers and 40% to 32% for boomers). In an encouraging sign for the current generation of retirees, 25% of the boomers surveyed indicated that they were debt free.¹