The new American retirement fear: working until you die

In times of economic strain, pessimism about retirement often follows.

Recent data suggests many Americans now believe their bleakest fear is becoming reality: that they won’t be able to retire at all.

More than two in five Americans — 43% — say they expect to work until they die, according to a WalletHub survey released at the end of August.

Nearly two in five respondents (39%) said thinking about retirement makes them feel anxious, and more than one in four (29%) said they’re counting on family members to support them financially once they stop working.

Retirement doubt is not new in the U.S.

A majority of Americans have told Gallup they’re worried about not having enough money for retirement every year since 2001 — it has ranked as the country’s top financial worry for more than two decades, ahead of medical costs and every other money concern Gallup tracks.

But the latest wave of anxiety is landing as households contend with a fresh bout of inflation, which has moved back to the center of Americans’ financial worries.

Fortune has tracked this shift across the retirement landscape , from vanishing pensions to a widening savings gap.

Rising prices have been most visible in essentials like gas and groceries.

The national average for a gallon of regular gasoline hit $4.27 this week — up 13 cents in the past seven days alone — according to AAA, while the average price of ground beef reached $6.89 a pound in July, up 9.4% from a year earlier, per the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

The result is fear and uncertainty about the future.

A report released in August by the National Institute on Retirement Security (NIRS) found that among the 61% of Americans concerned they won’t achieve financial security in retirement, 73% pointed to inflation as a contributing factor, with market volatility (62%) close behind.

Those pressures echo the Employee Benefit Research Institute’s 2026 Retirement Confidence Survey, which found worker confidence in having enough to retire comfortably had slipped six points to 61%.

Debt is compounding the strain and eating into savings.