The Gap Between Retirement Expectations and Reality — and How to Confidently Bridge It

Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared on Boldin.

Most people’s retirement plan amounts to a 401(k) they hope is enough and a general intention to get serious about it eventually. Two national surveys recently looked at what it actually takes to retire with confidence, and who has it.

Only 61% of workers feel confident they’ll have enough money to live comfortably in retirement, according to the 2026 Retirement Confidence Survey from the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) and Greenwald Research. That’s down six points from the prior year.

Fidelity’s 2026 State of Retirement Planning study surveyed 2,015 Americans and found that 72% expect to retire on their own terms, up five points from 2025. Among those with a retirement plan, 83% feel confident about retiring. Among those without one, only 38% do.

Have a Plan
No Plan

Workers who feel confident about retirement
83%
38%

Retirees who say savings will last their lifetime
81%
45%

Source: Fidelity Investments 2026 State of Retirement Planning study, national online survey of 2,015 U.S. adults ages 18–79, conducted December 2–8, 2025.

If you don’t have a retirement plan yet, or you have one you’re not quite confident in, that’s where most people are. What produces confidence, both surveys show, is a plan that pulls your numbers together and gives you a picture you can trust.

This is what the data reveals, and why clear projections matter.

Most Americans Have a Plan but Not a Number

74% of Fidelity respondents said they have a plan to reach their retirement goals. And at the same time, 31% don’t know how much they’ll have saved when they get there.

A retirement plan without a savings projection is just a starting point. Seven in 10 people know their target retirement age, so the direction is there. What’s missing for most is the math: an income projection, a withdrawal sequence, and some sense of how the pieces connect across 20 or 30 years.

If that sounds familiar, you’ve got company.

Having a Retirement Plan More Than Doubles Your Confidence

Having a retirement plan more than doubles the likelihood that people feel confident about their future retirement, according to Fidelity’s 2026 State of Retirement Planning survey.

Among retirees who had a plan, 81% say their savings will last their lifetime. For retirees without one, only 45% say the same. Among workers, the picture is starker: The EBRI/Greenwald retirement confidence survey found that only 57% believe their savings will last their lifetime.

Retirement confidence, both surveys suggest, is a planning problem at its core. The people who feel ready are the ones who can see how their savings, Social Security, and other income sources add up across decades of retirement. People who can’t see that are mostly estimating.

That’s a solvable problem, and it doesn’t require a spreadsheet full of assumptions. The Boldin Planner runs your specific numbers and shows projections across different scenarios, so you can see what your retirement looks like before you’re living it.

Do Most Retirees Get to Retire on Their Own Terms?

Six in 10 Americans told Fidelity they plan to transition into retirement rather than stop on a specific date. The alternatives they’re weighing:

35% are thinking about gig work or side hustles
29% are considering starting a small business
26% plan to consult or work part-time in their current field

A plan built around a hard stop date doesn’t address any of this. If you plan to work part-time for five years before stepping away, that changes when you’d claim Social Security, how you sequence withdrawals, and whether you need to bridge health insurance before Medicare kicks in at 65.

There’s also another issue to consider: A plan built entirely around a gradual transition may not survive contact with reality either.

The EBRI/Greenwald survey found that nearly half of retirees retired earlier than they planned, which was up from the prior year. Of those, 76% say the reason was something outside their control:

A health problem or disability: 41%
Changes at their company (e.g., workplace closure, downsizing, or company reorganization): 35%

Nearly half of workers say they expect to transition out of work gradually, but notably, about three in four retirees reported that they stopped working all at once.

This is a helpful planning signal. A phased exit is worth modeling because it may be what you want. It’s also worth modeling because knowing what your finances look like if retirement arrives sooner than expected, and not by choice, is a different way for you to prepare.

How a Phased Retirement Plan Can Help You Prepare

Phased retirement means reducing hours or shifting to part-time and freelance income before stopping work entirely.

As you manage that transition, income sequencing becomes a question. Which accounts do you draw from, and when? Tapping a 401(k) early while you’re still receiving part-time income can create a tax bill worth modeling before you commit to anything.

Social Security timing shifts too. Delay often still makes sense with part-time income coming in, but it depends on your projected benefit and your timeline. The only way to know is to run the numbers for your situation.

The healthcare gap is the one most people underestimate. Between leaving full-time work and Medicare at 65, coverage can cost far more than people expect. If a phased plan doesn’t address it, it has a real hole in it. If an early exit is unplanned, that hole can be expensive.

What Retirement Costs Do Most Plans Leave Out?

The healthcare number from the Fidelity study deserves more attention than it gets. Fidelity estimates retirement healthcare costs at $172,500 for a single individual, and 8 in 10 respondents expect those costs to be high.

Only 25% of respondents are funding a health savings account.

Which Accounts Do Retirees Draw From?

Understanding the income side of retirement is just as important as the savings side. The EBRI/Greenwald survey asked both workers and retirees about their income sources: what workers expect to draw from, and what retirees actually do. The divergences are noteworthy.

Income Source
Workers (Expected)
Retirees (Actual)

Social Security
89%
92%

Workplace retirement savings plan
83%
45%

Personal retirement savings or investments
76%
68%

Work for pay
75%
27%

IRA
71%
54%

Pension
66%
56%

Roth IRA
60%
34%

Home equity or rental income
58%
33%

Guaranteed lifetime income product
57%
36%

Source: 2026 EBRI/Greenwald Retirement Confidence Survey, conducted online January 2–28, 2026; general population sample of 2,052 Americans ages 25 or older, including 1,007 workers and 1,045 retirees.

Social Security is the one source where expectation and reality align. Nearly everything else shows workers expecting to count on income streams that retirees end up drawing from less, sometimes substantially less.

Only 45% of retirees actually use a workplace retirement plan as an income source, compared to 83% who expected to. Workers are also counting on earned income in retirement that most of them will likely not earn. Only 27% of retirees actually use work for pay as an income source.

Social Security is fixed and inflation-adjusted. A 401(k) demands decisions about when to start withdrawing, in what order, and with what tax approach. The income mix you’re counting on shapes every planning decision downstream.

Knowing which buckets you’ll draw from, and in what sequence, is what a retirement income plan answers. Getting that picture in front of you, even roughly, can positively change how you feel about the rest of the planning.

What Confident Retirees Do Differently

The Fidelity study is clear on what produces the ability to retire with confidence: a plan that works through income sources, tax exposure, healthcare costs, and how withdrawals sequence across retirement. People with that kind of plan are more than twice as likely to feel good about where they’re headed.

Confidence isn’t certainty. Retirement has too many variables for that. But a plan built around your actual numbers and timeline gives you something to work from and adjust as things change. That’s a different position altogether from hoping it works out.

If you’ve been putting off getting specific, this is a good time to start.