The song “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” describes how people feel about retirement these days. That’s the song chosen by nearly half of the respondents in a survey released on July 29 by the Alliance for Lifetime Income, a nonprofit educating Americans about protected lifetime income in retirement.

Most people surveyed (7 out of 10) say “the pandemic has made them more pessimistic about their retirement plans” (with 63% being somewhat more pessimistic and 7% much more pessimistic). Now, people are rethinking how much money they will have when they retire (4 out of 10 surveyed).

That’s not surprising, considering the uncertainty caused by COVID-19.

In its “COVID-19 Retirement Reset #3 Tracker Report,” the Alliance identified three economic waves of the pandemic to this point in time (March 6-16; April 13-20; and June 18-22). Unemployment claims, deaths and the stock market all rose from wave 1 through wave 3. (Unemployment: 3 million in March; 33 million in June. COVID-19 deaths: 100 in March; 119,510 in June. Stock market: Dow at around 20,000 in March; around 26,000 in June.)

The majority of respondents (66%) are concerned about the economy and the investing environment impacting their retirement plans. However, that data point was lower than survey results in April (75%). In April, 67% of those who were concerned about the current economy and the investment environment said their investments “declined considerably,” yet that percentage dropped to 46% in June. Those worried about recovering their financial losses stood at 63% in April; in June, that was down to 42%.

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