Survey: Money Causes a Third to Delay Retiring

A third of workers in the United States are having to push back retirement because they either did not save enough to live out their golden years or started too late, according to Fidelity Investments.

In a national survey of 1,900 workers ages 25 and older, the No. 1 mutual fund firm and a big player in the retirement industry found that more than half of those workers who have had to postpone retirement have done so because they did not save enough.

Thirty-five percent said they had started saving too late in life, and about the same number had to keep working to hold on to employer-paid health benefits, according to the survey released this week.

About one-quarter said their delayed retirement was caused by poor investment decisions or market fluctuations that caused a shortage of money.

“Too many people are delaying their retirement dreams for lack of planning and adequate savings,” said Jeff Carney, president of Fidelity Personal Investments.

Fidelity, like others in the financial service industry, has long said Americans were not putting enough aside for retirement.

Earlier this year, Fidelity said that, based on the current rate of savings, the average American household would live on 59% of pre-retirement income once they stopped working.

Separately, Boston-based Putnam Investments found in a survey late last year that a majority of retirees wished they had started to save earlier in life and that about one-third said they should have saved more.

Putnam, which gives 401(k) participants statements showing the gap between what they are saving and what they should be putting aside for retirement, said 75% to 80% of people in 52 defined-contribution plans the company manages were not saving as much as they needed to.

In May, human resources services firm Hewitt Associates said the rate of participation in 401(k) plans inched up a mere 0.5% in 2004 to 70.3%.