The share of baby boomers who plan to work until 70 or older has shot up in the past two years, according to a study by the Insured Retirement Institute.
While boomers' overall retirement confidence level is continuing to fall, according to the study, released Monday, boomers reported improvements in several key financial areas.
IRI first began tracking boomer retirement expectations back in 2011. Then, 44% of boomers said they were very confident about their retirement prospects. Now that level has slipped to 35%.
Boomers are also less confident that they'll have enough saved to live on — 37% said they were confident in 2011 versus 33% this year — and they're much more likely to say they will work at least until age 70. In 2011, just 17% of boomers said they'd work so long; today it's 28%.
Some of their behaviors could get them into trouble, too. More than 20% of boomers said they had stopped contributing to their retirement plan, and 10% said they've made early withdrawals from the plan.
However, IRI said that in some ways, boomers' confidence levels are improving.
The report found that in spite of being more dissatisfied with the economy in general, 42% of boomers expect their own financial situation to improve in the next five years, up from 33% of boomers last year. However, they expect only a slight improvement, and the same percentage expect their situation to remain about the same.
