The United States now ranks 24th in Natixis Investment Managers' 2026 Global Retirement Index, a three-place drop from 21st in 2025 and a ten-place slide from its 14th position in 2016. The annual report, which evaluates retirement security across 44 nations, attributes the decline to deteriorating scores in three of four sub-indices, reflecting what researchers call systemic strain on a system designed for an era of stable jobs, predictable inflation, and reliable government support.
Dave Goodsell, executive director of Natixis's Center for Investor Insight, said workers are confronting a retirement model built for a different era. An aging population is straining public systems, while high debt levels threaten future benefits and inflation makes saving harder. The report's Finances in Retirement sub-index saw the steepest fall, with the U.S. dropping eight places to 18th, driven by renewed inflationary pressures and entrenched government indebtedness.
Debt and inflation reshape client conversations
According to Natixis's 2025 Global Survey of Individual Investors, 76% of American investors believe mounting public debt will reduce their retirement benefits, and 77% expect higher taxes due to growing deficits. Forty-one percent said inflation is undermining their retirement dreams, while advisors ranked underestimating inflation among the most significant planning risks. Two-thirds of investors globally reported that higher everyday prices are forcing them to save less.
Healthcare adds another layer of risk. The U.S. spends more per person on healthcare than any other country in the 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. That concern is already reshaping retirement geography: more than 700,000 Americans now collect Social Security while living abroad, up over 60% from roughly 431,000 two decades ago, according to Social Security Administration data.
The expectations 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. U.S. findings reveal a persistent mismatch between client expectations and advisor assessments. Fifty-two percent of advisors identified unrealistic return expectations as the biggest retirement-planning mistake clients make. American investors expect long-term returns of 8.9% above inflation, while advisors say a realistic figure is closer to 7.4%—a gap of nearly 1.5 percentage points that compounds significantly over a multi-decade savings horizon.
Tax planning also looms large: 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 U.S. 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 escalation 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, 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 U.S. 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. Liana Magner, head of institutional and retirement in the U.S. at Natixis, said modernizing retirement means giving individuals a better chance to succeed—expanding access, making it easier to save consistently, and helping investors build realistic expectations around returns, risks, and income 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. As retirement assets hit record highs, the challenge is ensuring those balances translate into secure income. Meanwhile, guaranteed income products are gaining traction as a way to address anxiety, and fintech platforms like Vestwell are expanding access to workplace plans. The path forward, as the index suggests, requires both policy innovation and advisor-led education.
