US retirement ranking slides to 24th as debt and inflation squeeze savers

The United States dropped to 24th place in the 2026 Global Retirement Index (GRI) from Natixis Investment Managers, falling three spots from 21st in 2025 and a full ten places from its 2016 ranking of 14th.

The decline, driven by worsening scores across three of the four sub-indices, reflects what researchers describe as systemic pressure on a retirement model built for an era of stable employment, steady inflation and predictable government support.

"Workers are confronting the reality that the current retirement system was built for a different era," said Dave Goodsell, Executive Director of Natixis IM's Center for Investor Insight. "An aging population is putting greater strain on public retirement systems, debt levels are adding pressure to future benefits, and inflation is making it harder for individuals to save."

Debt and inflation are reshaping client conversations

The most dramatic slide came in the Finances in Retirement sub-index, where the US fell eight places to 18th. Renewed inflationary pressure and entrenched government indebtedness drove the decline.

According to the Natixis 2025 Global Survey of Individual Investors, 76% of American investors believe mounting public debt will ultimately reduce their retirement benefits, while 77% expect growing deficits to translate into higher taxes.

Forty-one percent of US investors said inflation is killing their retirement dreams, while financial advisors in the survey ranked underestimating inflation as one of the most significant planning risks their clients face. That concern is well founded: two-thirds of investors globally said higher everyday prices are forcing them to save less, according to the report.

Healthcare adds a third layer of financial risk. The US continues to spend more per person on healthcare than any other country in the 44-nation index but ranks only 25th in the Health sub-index. One in three Americans fear going broke covering healthcare and long-term care costs in retirement, well above the 24% global average.

For some, those costs are already reshaping retirement geography: more than 700,000 Americans now collect Social Security benefits while living abroad, up more than 60% from approximately 431,000 two decades ago, according to Social Security Administration data.

The expectation gap advisors must close

The Natixis GRI includes data from a 2026 Global Survey of Financial Advisors covering 2,950 investment professionals across 23 countries. The US findings reveal a persistent mismatch between what clients expect and what advisors believe is achievable.

Fifty-two percent of advisors identified unrealistic return expectations as the biggest retirement-planning mistake their clients make. American investors expect long-term returns of 8.9% above inflation, while advisors say a realistic figure is closer to 7.4%. That gap (nearly 1.5 percentage points) compounds significantly over a multi-decade savings horizon.

Advisors also pointed to tax planning blind spots: 39% of advisors said clients do not adequately understand the tax implications of their investments, a risk that takes on new urgency if the 77% of investors who expect higher future taxes prove correct.

Retirement crisis fears among Americans have hit record highs in recent tracking surveys, signaling that the anxiety the Natixis index reflects is resonating well beyond institutional circles.

Policy reform opens a door for advisors

The GRI frames its analysis around three policy levers - access, automation and adequacy - and the US has seen movement on all three, though coverage gaps persist.

SECURE 2.0 expanded eligibility for long-term part-time workers and mandated automatic enrollment and automatic escalation provisions for certain new plans.

More than 20 states have enacted or implemented state-sponsored auto-IRA programs, reaching 1.19 million funded accounts and $2.89 billion in assets by early 2026, according to Pew Research Center. However, according to Pew, more than 56 million private-sector workers still lack access to a workplace retirement plan, with small-business employees particularly likely to be uncovered.

The next frontier is the investment toolkit itself. The GRI report highlights a growing push, including a 2025 executive order directing the Department of Labor to reexamine fiduciary guidance, to open defined contribution plans to private asset allocations. In response, the DOL introduced a proposal in 2026 to create a process-based safe harbor for alternative assets in ERISA-governed plans.

Advisors see an opportunity. Almost half (46%) of US advisors in the Natixis survey said clients approaching retirement are underappreciating the income potential private assets can offer, and 43% said the long-term nature of private investments makes them a natural fit for retirement portfolios. Sixty percent expect a regulatory pathway to open for DC plans to incorporate private assets within the next 12 months.

Closing the gap between aspiration and action

The headline number (24th and falling) tells only part of the story. In a notable contrast to global sentiment, just one in five American investors believe it will take a miracle to retire securely, compared with 43% globally.

That resilience, researchers suggest, may reflect optimism about the system's capacity to adapt or simply an underestimation of the challenges ahead.

"Modernizing retirement means giving individuals a better chance to succeed," said Liana Magner, Head of Institutional and Retirement in the US at Natixis Investment Managers. "That means expanding access, making it easier to save consistently and helping investors build realistic expectations around the returns, risks and income they will need over a longer retirement."

For advisors, the Natixis data amounts to a clear brief: the planning gap is real, it is widening, and the clients who need the most help are often the least covered by the existing system.

The 2026 Natixis Global Retirement Index was developed with CoreData Research and evaluates retirement security across 44 countries using 18 indicators grouped into four sub-indices: Finances in Retirement, Material Wellbeing, Health and Quality of Life. The Financial Advisors survey was conducted between March and May 2026 across 23 countries. The Individual Investor survey was conducted in February and March 2025 across 21 countries.