Most Americans – A new Retirement Risk Survey finds 59% of retirees left work earlier than expected, with health setbacks, job dissatisfaction, job loss, and household changes among the top drivers—often out of workers’ control. Yet many retirees report they’re still doing fin
For more than half of American retirees, the plan quietly broke—long before retirement was supposed to arrive.
A new Retirement Risk Survey released in May found that 59% of retirees left the workforce before they had expected to. Only 6% retired later than expected. The reason matters. not just for budgets. but for what people thought they were buying when they built a working life around a target retirement age.
On average. American workers retire at age 62. according to two respected annual surveys of working and retired Americans: one from the Employee Benefit Research Institute and the other from the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies. But most workers don’t plan to stop that early. The EBRI survey found the average worker expects to retire at 65. while Transamerica reported that 39% of workers plan to retire after 70. if at all.
Health setbacks were the most common trigger. The Society of Actuaries report found that health setbacks were the most common reason retirees left work earlier than planned.
The survey also drew a sharp line between retirees with different incomes—because “control” over timing doesn’t fall evenly.
For retirees with incomes under $35,000, the most common reason for retiring early was “changes in health status,” presumably health setbacks for the worker or someone in their household. Job loss ranked second. Both factors fell outside the worker’s control.
For retirees with incomes over $75,000, the principal reason was job dissatisfaction. The second-ranked reason was achieving a retirement savings goal earlier than expected. Both factors fell within the worker’s control.
Timothy Geddes. a managing director at Deloitte Consulting and co-author of the report. described how some higher-income retirees viewed early retirement as an outcome they could shape. “Some of the high-income retirees reported that they achieved their financial goals, so they stopped working,” he said. “And that’s not in any way negative.”.
Low-income retirees, he said, were far more likely to be forced into the timing. Geddes said, “Certainly, those are not people doing it because they want to. They’re doing it because they have to.”
He put it even more directly about workers who retired early due to health reasons: “They’re doing it because they have to.”
The Society of Actuaries report drew on interviews of 1,007 pre-retirees and 1,005 retirees in 2024.
When retirees in the survey were asked why they left the workforce earlier than planned. the results clustered around five main reasons: changes in health status (31%). job dissatisfaction (25%). job loss (20%). change in family situation (19%). and achieved retirement savings goal earlier than expected (16%).
The findings collide with a common belief that retirement is largely a choice—when, for many Americans, it’s a response to what life delivers.
Craig Copeland. director of wealth benefits research at EBRI. explained the divide this way: “The higher-income people are more likely to do it because it’s their choice. whereas the lower-income people are more likely to have their health or a change at the company being the cause. ” he said. “It’s out of their control.”.
That view is echoed in the EBRI/Greenwald Retirement Confidence Survey. In the 2026 survey, 46% of retirees said they left the workforce earlier than planned. Only 6% retired later than expected.
Even with the early exits, the survey results suggest fewer retirees are falling apart financially than many people fear.
In the Society of Actuaries survey, only 19% of retirees said they were worse off financially than they had expected when they were working. In the EBRI survey, only 24% of retirees described their standard of living as fair or poor.
Those responses point to a familiar reality: many retirees appear to be making do on Social Security income and a modest amount of savings.
In the 65–74 age group, the typical family with a retirement account has about $200,000 saved, according to the latest federal Survey of Consumer Finances in 2022. Only about half of those households have retirement accounts at all.
By contrast, financial planners often recommend workers plan to save $1 million or more toward retirement.
Copeland summed up the lived tradeoffs behind the numbers: “There’s a great deal of making adjustments and learning to live with what you have.”
The picture that emerges is not just that retirement is happening earlier—it’s how uneven that shift feels. For some, it’s tied to job choices and savings goals reached sooner. For others, it’s health problems or layoffs, arriving with no warning and no leverage to negotiate timing.
retirement risk survey early retirement Employee Benefit Research Institute Society of Actuaries Deloitte Consulting EBRI Greenwald Retirement Confidence Survey retirement confidence Social Security job loss health setbacks
So basically people just can’t retire when they planned?
Retiring at 62 is the scam they don’t talk about. If my health is fine I’d just keep working, but if something happens then yeah it’s over. Also job loss?? like who even plans for that.
Wait I thought you retire later than planned because you have more savings, not less. The article says job dissatisfaction is a main reason for higher income people which sounds backwards to me. Like if you make more you can just quit, right? Unless they’re counting stress or something.
Not shocked. My uncle had to stop working “early” and it was all health stuff, but everybody keeps saying it’s about budgets like that’s the whole story. The 59% number sounds high but I guess if you think average retirement is 62 and most people expect 65, then yeah it’ll look bad. Also the under $35k folks thing… job loss and health changes are always the bad luck stuff you can’t control. I’m just wondering what they mean by ‘doing fin’ at the end cause it cuts off and idk if they mean fine or finance??