There is some genuinely good news in a new retirement study from Fidelity. Nearly three out of four Americans (72 percent) say they expect to retire on their own terms. That is up five percentage points from 2025. And Americans are contributing an average of $9,000 a year to their retirement accounts.
That sounds encouraging. But if you are a boomer, the picture is a bit more complicated.
Boomers Are Less Confident and With Good Reason
The Fidelity 2026 State of Retirement Planning study found that younger generations are actually more confident about retirement than those of us closest to it. Among Gen Z, 75 percent feel good about retiring on their own terms. Among millennials, that number climbs to 78 percent.
For boomers? Just 68 percent feel that confident. Gen X came in even lower, at 63 percent.
That gap in confidence is not just nerves. There are real financial reasons behind it. And the biggest one is inflation.
Inflation Has Locked In Higher Prices
Across every generation, the number one obstacle to saving money is the same: rising prices. Exactly half of boomers (50 percent) named rising living costs as their biggest savings challenge. That matches Gen Z exactly, with 49 percent of millennials and 56 percent of Gen X saying the same thing.
Here is something worth understanding about inflation that does not always get explained clearly. When the inflation rate drops, that does not mean prices drop. It just means prices are rising more slowly.
The nonprofit data organization USAFacts pointed this out directly. Inflation fell from a 40-year high of over 9 percent in 2022 to less than 2.5 percent in 2026. But prices did not fall by 6.5 percentage points during that time. They simply rose 6.5 percentage points more slowly. The high prices of 2022 largely became the new floor, and costs have kept climbing from there.
Seniors Often Face a Faster Rate of Rising Costs
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the current general inflation rate at 2.4 percent. But there is a separate measure called the CPI-E that tracks prices specifically for people aged 62 and older.
The CPI-E weights things differently. It places greater emphasis on the expenses that hit seniors hardest: housing, healthcare, food, transportation, and apparel. And it consistently shows that prices tend to rise faster for older adults than the general inflation rate suggests.
So even if you have been saving $9,000 a year (or more), that money simply does not go as far for a boomer as it does for someone decades younger. The same dollars buy less when healthcare and housing costs rise faster than the overall rate.
That is not a reason to panic. But it is a reason to take a clear-eyed look at your retirement picture and make sure your plan accounts for the real costs you are likely to face.