By: Russ Kamp, CEO, Ryan ALM, Inc.

In my post from last week, I questioned whether those believing that they were well-prepared for retirement truly were. PwC’s newly released Employee Financial Wellness Survey paints a bleak picture of just how bad things really are for a vast majority of America’s workforce. Roughly 60% of those surveyed highlighted their finances as their greatest source of stress and concern. Unfortunately, only 38% believe that they will retire at the age that they originally planned, as about 2/3rds indicated that they had less than $100k saved for retirement.

It gets worse, as more than 50% of those believed that they would have to tap into that savings before retirement to help with rising short-term costs. Again, asking financially strapped Americans to fund, manage, and disburse a “retirement” benefit through a 401(k) with little disposable income, no investment skill, and no crystal ball to help with longevity issues is just silly policy.