The first part of this Gallup survey addresses the level of annual income Americans would need to consider themselves “rich”, a question that, at least by most definitions of the word (i.e., relating to wealth, not income), doesn’t make sense. But, the second poll asking what net worth would be required to qualify as “rich” had more interesting results:

A surprising 74 percent of those polled think that, if you’ve reached the one million dollar mark you are “rich” and, even more surprisingly, this hasn’t changed in seven years since the last time this survey was conducted.

It strikes me that, either one of these polls was somehow flawed or people really don’t understand what has been happening to their money – even using the government’s dubious inflation statistics, $1 million in 2003 is now worth almost $1.25 million today, meaning that there should have been a sizeable shift upward in the survey results.

In another sign that Americans are ill-prepared to enjoy what have always been thought of as “golden years”, according to a new Wells Fargo survey, some 25 percent of aspiring middle class retirees don’t think they’ll be able to quit working until they’re 80 years old.

The concept of a “retirement age” is going the way of the typewriter, another 20th-century relic that has been made irrelevant by changing circumstances. Middle class Americans now expect to work until they have saved enough to afford to retire, according to results from the seventh annual Retirement Survey from Wells Fargo & Company.

Three fourths (76%) of the 1,500 middle class Americans surveyed by telephone by Harris Interactive in August and September 2011 say it is more important to have a specific amount saved before retirement, regardless of age, while only 20% say it is more important to retire at a specific age, regardless of savings.

The survey also found:

• A quarter (25%) of middle class Americans say they will “need to work until at least age 80” to live comfortably in retirement
• Three-fourths (74%) of middle class Americans expect to work in their retirement years, including 39% of all respondents who will need to work to make ends meet or maintain their lifestyles, while 35% say they will work because they want to, rather than out of financial need.
• Among middle class Americans age 40 to 59, 54% say they will “need to work,” compared to 34% of those age 25 to 39. Accordingly, only 25% of those between the ages of 40 and 59 say they will work in retirement because they “want to,” versus 45% of Americans between the ages of 25 and 39.

There’s lots more thoroughly depressing data in this survey, not the least of which is that almost 40 percent of respondents have “no fears” about retirement because “it will work itself out”. For about 90 percent of this group, it probably won’t.

Also, Americans have saved only $25,000 of an estimated $350,000 they’ll need to retire comfortably with almost a third of those in their 60s having saved less than $25,000.

Yesterday wasn’t a good day for pensioners in Central Falls, Rhode Island as the city filed for federal bankruptcy protection after retirees voted down massive cuts to their pensions.

There are shades of the housing bubble bust here, in that, people believed the unbelievable. A few years ago it was that home prices would rise in perpetuity and that we’d all be wealthy forever. Today, it’s the notion that governments can make good on the generous public sector retirement packages they’ve promised over the years.

You have to feel former fireman Donald Cardin as his retirement check is about to get cut in half while his wife is suffering from cancer. Then again, counting on keeping a generous pension for the rest of your life after retiring in your early-40s is about as sound a plan as expecting your home equity to pay for your kids’ education and fund your golden years.