A new report from GoBankingRates puts a number on something that personal finance educators have been tracking for years: 22 percent of Americans do not believe they will ever retire.
Not that retirement will be delayed. Not that it will look different than expected. They do not believe it will happen at all.
That is not a fringe sentiment. It represents more than one in five Americans — a significant portion of the workforce arriving at a conclusion that, in most cases, is the result of not having a workable retirement savings strategy rather than a genuine financial impossibility.
What the GoBankingRates Report Found
The full report, published at GoBankingRates (https://www.gobankingrates.com/retirement/planning/22-percent-americans-dont-believe-theyll-ever-retire-best-ways-to-save-now/), examines both the scale of retirement pessimism and the practical steps available to people who feel behind. The coverage connects directly to the core problem BudgetDog was built to address: most people are not lacking ambition — they are lacking a clear plan and the financial literacy to execute it.
The data reflects a crisis of confidence as much as a crisis of savings. Many Americans have some retirement assets. However, they lack visibility into what those assets will actually produce, how to optimize them, and whether their current trajectory is enough. Without that clarity, pessimism fills the gap.
Why So Many People Feel Like Retirement Is Impossible
Retirement pessimism tends to cluster around a few consistent problems. Understanding them is the first step toward solving them.
High debt loads and no surplus to invest. When income is fully absorbed by expenses and debt payments, investing feels out of reach. The math appears to leave no room. As a result, people assume the window has closed.
Late starts and compounding anxiety. Compound growth is powerful early and punishing late. Someone who starts investing at 40 instead of 25 faces a legitimate gap — but that gap is rarely as insurmountable as it feels. The narrative of “it’s too late” spreads faster than the actual math supports.
No understanding of available tools. Most people have access to tax-advantaged retirement accounts — 401(k)s, IRAs, Roth IRAs — that they either underuse or do not fully understand. Catch-up contribution limits exist specifically for people over 50. These tools are real and available. However, they require financial literacy to use effectively.
Reliance on advisors or systems that charge too much. High-fee financial products and advisors operating under commission structures can quietly drain retirement accounts for years. Many people are saving money they believe is growing, only to discover later that fees have significantly reduced their returns.
BudgetDog’s Mission Meets This Moment
Brennan Schlagbaum built BudgetDog after paying off $304,000 in debt and reaching a seven-figure net worth before age 30. That trajectory was not accidental — it was the result of a deliberate, repeatable financial system that he now teaches through BudgetDog Academy.
The 22 percent figure from GoBankingRates represents exactly the population BDA was designed for: people who have written off retirement as a realistic outcome because no one has shown them a path that actually works for their situation.
The program addresses this directly. Students learn how to build a complete financial picture — income, expenses, debt, investments, and net worth — and then execute a structured plan that prioritizes the accounts and behaviors most likely to produce long-term wealth. That includes understanding which retirement accounts to use, in which order, and how to automate the process so it runs without constant intervention.
What Changes When the Framework Is in Place
The GoBankingRates article outlines general strategies: start saving more, reduce expenses, take advantage of employer matches, and so on. Those recommendations are valid. However, the gap between knowing what to do and actually doing it consistently is where most people get stuck.
That gap is a systems problem, not a motivation problem. People do not fail to save for retirement because they do not care. They fail because the system around them — the financial products, the advice industry, the lack of clear financial education — is not structured to help them succeed.
BudgetDog students consistently report that the shift is not just in their account balances. It is in how they think about money. Once the framework is in place, the decisions become clearer. The automated investments start running. The fee structures get audited and cleaned up. The net worth number begins to move.
The 22 Percent Does Not Have to Stay at 22 Percent
The GoBankingRates data is worth taking seriously — not as a fixed reality, but as a baseline that financial education can change.
Retirement pessimism is largely a symptom of financial illiteracy and the absence of a concrete plan. Those are solvable problems. The tools exist. The accounts exist. The math, for most people, works — if someone actually shows them how to run it.
That is what BudgetDog exists to do.
Read the full GoBankingRates report here: 22% of Americans Don’t Believe They’ll Ever Retire (https://www.gobankingrates.com/retirement/planning/22-percent-americans-dont-believe-theyll-ever-retire-best-ways-to-save-now/)