On October 6, 2022, the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) released its issue brief, 2022 Spending in Retirement Survey: Understanding the Pandemic’s Impact. The brief examines the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on retirement spending patterns and well-being changes since 2020. On average, the retirees included in the survey reported lower alignment with preretirement expectations and less satisfaction with life in retirement as compared with 2020.

Some of the key findings include:

• In 2022, over 50% of the respondents retired earlier than expected with 29% citing retirement affordability and 21% having a health issue or disability unrelated to COVID-19.
• 70% reported that Social Security was a significant income source, unchanged from 2020.
• On average, respondents reported that about 33% of monthly income was spent on housing expenses and the second largest expenditure was food.
• About 27% reported spending has increased and is higher than they can afford in 2022 as compared with 17% in 2020.
• Among those that decreased either their essential or discretionary spending since the pandemic, about 90% cited concern about inflation.
• Overall, about 70% of retirees reported having three months of emergency savings.
• The majority of respondents that reported lower senses of well-being based on their standard of living, alignment, and satisfaction included: 1) retirees without defined benefit or other annuity income; 2) retirees with limited financial knowledge or not using a financial advisor; and 3) retirees that were female and unmarried.

The results are based on a recent survey of about 2,000 American retirees between the ages of 62 and 75.

The report summary is available here.