Two in Five Americans Say They’ll Need $1M to Retire

Fidelity Investments posits a savings factor you multiply your income by, at certain ages, to see  if you're on track. At 45, you should have at least four times your income saved; at 55, seven times your income; at 67, it's 10 times. If you're 67 and make $150,000 a year, for example, you should have $1.5 million socked away.

Even if people have a tough time calculating how much to save for retirement, a majority of retirees surveyed (53 percent) said that expenses, excluding medical bills, were about what they'd expected when they retired. About a quarter of retirees said costs were somewhat higher, and 13 percent chose "much higher."

Where retirees tended to underestimate costs sharply was in health care.

Breaking that out of the broader expenses category, EBRI found that 39 percent of the retirees said health care costs were about what they expected, but 27 percent said they were somewhat higher, and one in five said they were much higher. A presumably very healthy 8 percent said health-care expenses were somewhat lower, and 5 percent said much lower. 

The survey didn't ask the retirees for specific dollar amounts they were spending on retiree health care. Fidelity estimated last August that a 65-year-old couple retiring in 2016 could spend an estimated $260,000 on medical expenses in retirement.

That doesn't include money needed to cover long-term care, which could cost that couple another $130,000. That's almost $400,000, without even bringing housing into the equation. And don't forget food.

A common refrain when workers are asked about how they'll fix a savings shortfall is to work longer. EBRI has found, however, that many Americans retired before they had planned. In this latest survey, that figure was 48 percent.

Health problems or disability were cited by 41 percent of those who retired earlier than expected, and 26 percent pointed to changes at their company, such as downsizing or closure. Another 14 percent left earlier than planned to care for a spouse or other member of their family.

Retiring earlier than expected may mean programs such as Social Security and Medicare become a bigger part of your income stream.

Only 6 percent if the survey's respondents say they're very confident that the Social Security benefits they get will be at least equal to what retirees get today. Sixty-one percent said they weren't too confident of it, or not at all confident (41 and 20 percent). For Medicare, the percentage of workers in those categories combined was also 61 percent. Seventeen percent were not at all confident.

For the first time in the survey's history, EBRI used an an outside vendor's online panel instead of a random phone survey. People surveyed over the phone tend to choose "very confident" more often, the report noted, while online respondents lean toward "somewhat confident." Online, it said, people tend to "provide more honest, less flattering responses."