Americans Unprepared for Retirement

Retirement looks years away and grim for many Americans who are not properly saving for their golden years and working much longer to compensate, according to a report released Tuesday.  

The survey, the Employee Benefit Research Institute's annual Retirement Confidence Survey, found that Americans have been saving less and less for retirement for the third consecutive year. 

"Americans' attitudes toward retirement have clearly tracked the economy the last couple of years, and that seems to be the case in 2010," said Jack VanDerhei, EBRI's research director and co-author of the survey, in a statement. 

According to the report, the majority of Americans have less than $50,000 saved for retirement, excluding home values and any defined benefit plans.  Unfortunately, those Americans are in much better shape for retirement that others who have saved virtually nothing. 

The report found that those that have saved less than $10,000 has climbed to 43 percent from 39 percent last year.  More than one in four Americans have saved less than $1,000 for retirement, according to the study.

All that has led to a 20-year low in the number of Americans who say they are confident they will have built enough of a nest egg to live comfortably in retirement.

Much of the falling saving rate can be attributed to the economy, according to the authors of the report.  They told CNNMoney.com that job losses, mortgage problems and the suspension of corporate 401(k) matches in 2009 are partially to blame for the problem.

No matter the cause, it is leading more and more Americans to prepare to work much later in life.  Nearly one in four respondents said that they had postponed their planned retirement ages in the past year.  One-third of respondents said they planned to work past the age of 65, up from just 11 percent in 1991. 

That could create severe problems for the labor market down the line as millions of Americans are in the workforce past retirement age, leaving less job openings for younger workers.   

While Americans are saving less, they are also expecting less from their government.  A total of 77 percent of respondents said that they expected to receive full Social Security benefits, down from 88 percent in 1991. 

The survey was conducted in January through telephone interviews with 1,153 Americans over the age of 25.