Hopeful or Deluded About Retirement?

For the first time since before the financial crisis, more Americans think they’ll have enough money to be comfortable in retirement than not according to the latest Gallup survey.

On its face, this is not very surprising given the dramatic rise in stock prices and home prices over the last year or so, developments that are pretty hard not to notice if you’ve given retirement even a passing thought. The latter is probably more important since, for better or worse, housing plays an outsized role in the finances of most American families.

It would appear that, more than anything else, we’re confident that the Federal Reserve will be able to keep asset prices inflated and that confidence may be misplaced.

Not surprisingly, how people think about retirement is quite different depending on how close to it you are as confidence goes down in the survey as age goes up with only 45 percent of those aged 50 to 64 answering yes to the question while 48 percent said no.