Gen X retirement savings facing ‘collision of financial pressures’ from family obligations

For millions of Americans approaching retirement, the biggest threat to their financial security may not be a market downturn or a healthcare crisis - it may be their own family.

New research by Jackson National Life Insurance Company, the main operating subsidiary of Jackson Financial Inc. (NYSE: JXN), in partnership with the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, finds that financially supporting adult family members has become a routine and recurring drain on the retirement savings of pre-retirees across the country.

According to the study, 34 percent of pre-retirees surveyed had provided significant financial support to an adult family member over the prior decade, with those who gave averaging $26,311, and 76 percent of those who have given before said they expect to do so again in the next decade.

Gen X is bearing the heaviest load

Thirty-six percent of Gen X respondents - broadly defined as those born between 1965 and 1980 – said they had provided significant support to a family member in the past decade, compared with 29 percent of baby boomers. Gen X respondents were nearly twice as likely to expect to give again.

What makes the Gen X picture particularly acute is the breadth of the obligation. Unlike the traditional image of the "sandwich generation" as adults squeezed between raising children and supporting aging parents, the study found that Gen X investors give to adult children, parents and other relatives at nearly identical rates. The squeeze is coming from more than two sides.

Gen X respondents were more likely than boomers to cover family support through credit cards, personal loans or retirement account withdrawals. Baby boomers, by comparison, more often tapped savings or investment accounts.

As Glen Franklin, assistant vice president of research, RIA and lead generation strategy for Jackson National Life Distributors LLC, the marketing and distribution business of Jackson, put it: "Gen X investors face a collision of financial pressures that other generations have not experienced in quite the same way. They are still building toward retirement while supporting family members on multiple fronts and doing so in ways that can quietly undermine that progress."

A savings gap advisors can no longer ignore

The retirement savings consequences are measurable. Pre-retirees who had provided significant family support had saved only 54 percent of what they were on track to need for retirement, compared with 66 percent for those who had not given support, according to the Jackson study.

The most common funding method was savings withdrawals, cited by 59 percent of support givers, followed by reduced personal spending at 32 percent. Nearly one in five investors surveyed had used a credit card to cover a family obligation.

The debt picture compounds the concern. Investors who had provided family support carried mortgage balances running approximately $70,000 higher on average than those who had not, and almost half carried revolving credit card debt. These are not clients who are simply behind on contributions, they are carrying structural debt that will follow them into retirement.

As InvestmentNews has reported, sandwich generation financial pressures are already reshaping how advisors approach retirement and portfolio planning for Gen X clients. The Jackson data puts hard numbers behind that trend.

Franklin argues the conversation needs to shift. "Retirement plans are designed to withstand market dips, inflation and rising healthcare costs," he said. "What catches people off guard is money moving out of their own household to address other areas such as a child's rent, a parent's care or a sibling's emergency. Our research shows these commitments are not necessarily one-time events, but rather an ongoing practice. Once a client's family support becomes a recurring obligation rather than a surprise, it belongs directly in the financial plan next to the mortgage and the car payment, not off to the side."

Andrew Eschtruth, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, added that beyond raising awareness, the research is intended to help investors plan ahead "so they don't end up compromising their own retirement security."

The savings shortfall lands against an already deteriorating backdrop as highlighted by the Employee Benefit Research Institute’s 2026 Retirement Confidence Survey which found that just 61 percent of American workers felt confident they would have enough money for a comfortable retirement, down from 67 percent the year prior - the lowest level of worker confidence recorded since 2017.

Recent research from PYMNTS Intelligence found that roughly 38% of Gen X consumers have $1,000 or less in readily available savings. That figure includes 18% who report no readily available savings at all.

Only 31 percent of financial professionals surveyed considered family members needing financial help a significant retirement risk for pre-retirement clients. Just 10 percent called planning for it "very important."

That disconnect between how common the behavior is among clients and how rarely advisors account for it represents a planning gap with real consequences.

For advisors already navigating the complex retirement landscape facing Gen X clients the Jackson research offers both a diagnosis and a prompt.

Two-thirds of pre-retirees who covered an unexpected family expense also paid for a planned one - a wedding, a home down payment - suggesting that once a client enters the pattern of family support, it tends to broaden. By comparison, only 16 percent of investors who had not covered unexpected expenses went on to fund anticipated ones.

The implication is that family financial support is not a one-off event that clients recover from, but a pattern that compounds. And for the roughly one in three pre-retirees currently caught in it, the retirement consequences are already showing up in the data.

The findings, part of Jackson's Security in Retirement Series, draw on surveys of more than 800 investors aged 45 to 80 with investable assets between $100,000 and $2.5 million, conducted in March 2026, as well as a separate April–May 2026 survey of 400 client-facing financial professionals.

For further context on how financial professionals can help clients plan for these obligations, InvestmentNews has covered strategies for keeping the sandwich generation on track for retirement.