Retirement-age workers still recovering from recession worry about Social Security

The legacy of the 2008 economic crash still has many Americans stressed about their fiscal futures even as they near retirement age. More than four out of 10 workers (42 percent) say they have yet to fully recover financially from the Great Recession, according to a new survey by the nonprofit Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies.

Many older workers say they’re counting on Social Security benefits to make up for lost retirement savings, but 77 percent worry that Social Security won’t be there for them when they do stop working.

When asked about priorities for Presidentelect Trump and the new Congress to help Americans become more financially secure, 58 percent of workers cited fully funding Social Security by implementing reforms to ensure that it can pay guaranteed benefits for future generations of retirees.

Transamerica’s report, “A Compendium of Findings About American Workers,” found that only 15 percent of workers are very confident they will be able to retire comfortably; 47 percent are somewhat confident.

Workers’ top three most frequently cited retirement fears are “outliving my savings/investments” (51 percent), followed by “Social Security will be reduced or cease to exist in the future” (47 percent) and “declining health that requires long-term care” (45 percent).