Despite the pandemic and inflation, American workers and retirees remain optimistic about living a comfortable retirement—and one key factor that has helped is having a workplace retirement savings plan.

This is according to the 32nd annual Retirement Confidence Survey (RCS) measuring worker and retirement confidence conducted by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) and Greenwald Research. In fact, in 2022, 82% of workers who are offered a workplace retirement savings plan are satisfied with it—a finding that has remained steady from 2021. Moreover, the same high share of plan participants say they are satisfied with the investment options available. These are important findings given that workers (82%) remain more likely than current retirees (47%) to expect their workplace DC plan to be a source of income in retirement.

Similarly, about 8 in 10 respondents report being satisfied with the tools and resources available through their plan for both determining how much to save and determining how to generate income from their retirement savings. In addition, 6 in 10 plan participants say they have received information estimating how much monthly income their plan savings might be able to generate.

One caveat is that some admit they do not fully understand some of the more common options available. For example, a third say they do not understand managed accounts, half do not understand ESG investment options, and 4 in 10 indicate they do not understand target date funds (TDFs), the survey found.
When asked about preferred improvements in retirement savings plans, Craig Copeland, EBRI’s director of Wealth Benefits Research, explained that respondents’ top choices were:

• better explanations for how much income their savings will produce in retirement;
• options that provide guaranteed lifetime income; and
• better explanations for whether they are on track with retirement savings.

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