Economy 5 min read By Bethany Hadley
Goldman Sachs survey finds 8 in 10 Gen Z and millennials hold two jobs as affordability crisis stalls retirement saving
A Goldman Sachs retirement survey shows 80% of Gen Z and 77% of millennials take on extra work, with most saying they could not make ends meet without it. The bank warns housing costs are crowding out retirement saving, while many older workers retire earlier than planned.
Four in five Gen Z workers and more than three-quarters of millennials are now doing additional work beyond their primary jobs, according to a new retirement survey from Goldman Sachs, as the cost of living forces younger generations to prioritise immediate bills over long-term financial security.
The bank's latest retirement survey, released this week, found that 61% of all employees are engaging in work outside their main roles. That figure rises to 80% for Gen Z, aged 14 to 29, and 77% for millennials, aged 30 to 45. For most of these younger workers, the extra income is not a choice: 76% of Gen Z and 73% of millennials said they could not make ends meet without it.
The financial strain is affecting performance in their primary jobs. Goldman found that 69% of Gen Z respondents and 67% of millennials said they find it difficult to focus at work because they worry about debt or household costs.
Across income groups and age brackets, Americans feel less prepared for retirement than they did a year ago. Only 58% of respondents said they were on track to meet their retirement goals, down from 68% last year. Chris Ceder, senior retirement strategist at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, told a media roundtable that savings momentum appears to be stalling.
«We ask a question in our survey around whether or not you are increasing your savings year over year, staying the same, or decreasing,» Ceder said. «We saw a decline from 55% to 39% who increased their savings into 2026 and we saw a higher number of people decreasing their savings. So, this notion of competing priorities having an impact, causing a stall, continues to see in the data.»
Goldman suggests that costs such as housing are now crowding out retirement saving. Mortgage rates remain significantly elevated compared with recent decades, and house prices remain unaffordable for many. Inflation stands at 3.4% after years of pandemic-induced price shocks, and concerns about job security linked to artificial intelligence are adding to household anxiety.
Ceder warned that the items being deferred are precisely those that provide financial stability. «When you look at what's actually being deferred, the concern is that many of the things that we're talking about are those that actually provide levels of financial security,» he said. «So, emergency savings, lowering debt, retirement savings are really at the top. So, you're deferring actually what's providing that level of stability again, which is also impacting … housing, family planning, and educational goals.»
The survey also offers a counterpoint to the gloom. Among retirees, 44% stopped working earlier than planned. Of those, 45% retired between one and three years earlier than expected, 26% between four and five years earlier, and 14% between six and 10 years sooner than originally estimated.
Work remains the main route to financial security for most Americans, though more than one in three respondents, 34%, said a primary motivation for changing jobs would be to earn more money. A separate study released last week by recruitment platform Monster found that 65% of prospective job movers are changing their search priorities because of petrol prices, 23% are looking for roles closer to home, and 17% are focusing more on salary expectations to offset the higher cost of commuting. A further 20% are prioritising fully remote roles, while 5% are applying for fully in-person positions.
The findings point to a widening gap between the way younger workers experience the labour market and the retirement planning assumptions that underpin much of the financial advice industry. With housing, debt and everyday costs absorbing a growing share of income, the survey suggests that for many under-45s, saving for retirement has become a distant priority rather than a realistic near-term goal.
1
