More than half of retirees stopped working earlier than planned, according to a new report. And the decision was often out of their control.
The Retirement Risk Survey released in May by the Society of Actuaries Research Institute found that 59% of retirees left the workforce sooner than they expected. Only 6% retired later than expected.
The report joins a body of research that suggests most Americans retire earlier than planned.
On average, American workers retire at age 62, according to two respected annual surveys of working and retired Americans, one from the Employee Benefit Research Institute, the other from the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies.
Most employees don’t plan to retire so soon. According to the EBRI survey, the average worker expects to retire at age 65. According to Transamerica, 39% of workers plan to retire after age 70, if at all.
The Society of Actuaries report found that health-related setbacks were the most common reason for early retirement.
Retirement reasons depend on income
The report also broke down retirement decisions for high- and low-income Americans. The differences are clear.
For retirees earning less than $35,000, the most common reason for retiring early was “change in health status”: presumably, a health setback for the worker or someone in their household. Job loss is in second place. Both factors were out of the worker’s control.
For retirees earning more than $75,000, the main reason for retiring early was job dissatisfaction. Reason number two: reaching retirement savings goals sooner than expected. Both these factors were under the control of the worker.
For more affluent workers who retired early, “a lot of the reasons were less negative,” said Timothy Geddes, managing director of Deloitte Consulting and co-author of the report.
“Some high-income retirees reported that they had achieved their financial goals, so they stopped working,” he said. “And that’s not a negative in any way.”
In contrast, low-income retirees were less likely to have choice about when and how they retired.
“Certainly, those people are not doing it because they want to,” Geddes said of workers who retire for health reasons. “They’re doing it because they have to.”
The Society of Actuaries’ report is based on interviews with 1,007 pre-retirees and 1,005 retirees in 2024.
Why do employees retire before they plan?
Retirees who left the workforce earlier than planned cited a number of factors in the survey. Here are the top five:
- Change in health status, 31%
- Job dissatisfaction, 25%
- Lost job, 20%
- Change in family situation, 19%
- Retirement savings goals achieved earlier than expected, 16%
The findings underscore a common misconception about retirement: that we get to choose when and how we leave the workforce.
Higher-income Americans are more likely to play a role in their retirement, even if they retire early, a finding reflected in both the Society of Actuaries report and the EBRI study.
“People with higher incomes are more likely to do it because it’s their choice, while people with lower incomes are more likely to do it because of their health or a change in company,” said Craig Copeland, director of wealth benefits research at EBRI. “It’s out of their control.”
In the 2026 EBRI/Greenwald Retirement Confidence Survey, 46% of retirees said they left the workforce earlier than planned. Only 6% retired later than expected.
Most retirees are doing just fine – at least financially
The good news, reflected in both the EBRI and Society of Actuaries studies, is that most retirees appear to be financially comfortable.
In a Society of Actuaries survey, only 19% of retirees said their financial situation was worse than they expected when they were working.
In the EBRI survey, only 24% of retirees rated their standard of living as fair or poor.
Those data points show that many retirees are living on Social Security income and modest savings.
In the 65-74 age group, the typical family with a retirement account has saved nearly $200,000, according to the latest federal Survey of Consumer Finances in 2022. Only about half of those households have retirement accounts.
In contrast, financial planners often advise workers to plan to save $1 million or more for retirement.
“It’s very important to learn to adjust and live with what you have,” Copeland said.