Recent studies by several prominent economists and researchers have shown that many Americans appear to be financially unprepared for retirement. In this article, we employ an alternative method to assess savings adequacy: we use data from the 1992 Survey of Consumer Finances together with a popular financial planning software program to evaluate Americans" retirement preparedness. We find that the planning program predicts that about half of working, middle-class households will not have fully funded retirements. In addition to providing an alternative means to assess overall savings adequacy, these results are significant because they are based on a methodology that might actually be used by a financial advisor or in a software package to provide real savings advice to individuals. Increasing awareness of the issue of savings adequacy, widespread use of planning programs, and the emergence of a service sector devoted to helping individuals to address their financial planning may ultimately have a strong positive influence on the saving decisions and retirement preparedness of many Americans.
