The average retirement¹ age among retirees is 62, Gallup found. And even retirement at age 62 is a recent development. The average retirement age has hovered² around 60 for most of the past decade.

 

"Americans have two reasons in which they may project a later retirement year. One is financial, and they simply think they will need to work longer because there are fewer pensions, and now people may have a more psychologically positive view of work," says Frank Newport, editor-in-chief of Gallup poll. But a plan to work longer isn't the same as keeping a job into your mid- or late 60s.

 

Other surveys have similarly found a significant gap between the age workers anticipate retiring and when they actually leave their jobs. A 2014 Employee Benefit Research Institute survey found that 33 percent of workers expect to retire after age 65, but only 16 percent of retirees report staying on the job that long. Just 9 percent of workers say they are planning to retire before age 60, but 35 percent of retirees say they retired³ that early. The median retirement age in the survey was 62.

 

Many of these early retirements⁴ are unexpected and due to unforeseen circumstances. About half (49 percent) of retirees say they left the workforce⁵ earlier than planned, often to cope with a health problem or disability (61 percent) or to care for a spouse⁶ or other family member (18 percent), EBRI found. Other retirees are forced out of their jobs due to changes at their company, such as a downsizing or closure (18 percent), changes in the skills required for their job (7 percent) or other work-related reasons (22 percent).

 

"The difference is between what you know you want to do and what factors outside your control ultimately require you to do," says Dallas Salisbury, president of EBRI. "I will tell you I want to continue working on the assumption that I can keep my job or get a new job, and then my job goes away because the plant closes down or something like that. Or I am very healthy when you ask me that question, and then I suddenly get pushed down a flight of stairs and end up disabled and out of work and on permanent disability for the balance of my life. You end up leaving long before you anticipated."

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