Most Canadians not ready for retirement: Deloitte

The majority of Canadians are unprepared for retirement and most people near retirement age need to make changes to avoid outliving their savings, a new report has found.

Deloitte Canada’s research, published Wednesday, found many Canadians are facing retirement challenges as the amount of money needed to retire has risen over the past few years. 

Fifty-five per cent of near-retiree households will need to make lifestyle changes to avoid outliving their savings, the researchers found after surveying 4,000 near-retiree and retiree Canadian households. That figure is expected to climb to 73 per cent when accounting for unexpected expenses like health care, long-term care costs and one-off expenses.  

The report said this group of people “are the middle-income Canadians who sit between the state-supported group and the well-off households and to whom we, as a country, are not paying sufficient attention to.”