How to Money · Wednesday, September 30, 2026
Jean Chatzky highlights that while some have sufficient retirement savings, a significant portion of the population does not. She points to the advantage younger generations, particularly Gen Z and millennials, have due to accessible retirement tools like 401(k)s with automatic contributions and target-date funds.
“And the good news about this, particularly for anybody who works at a job where there's a work based retirement plan, is that there are so many more tools available now than there were when I was starting to save for retirement to help you do it right.”
“We have big brother this system in a really positive and incredible way. You can just make the good decision to not opt out of a four to oh one K, to allow your employer to automatically escalate your contributions until you're maxing out to default you into a target date fund, which may not be the best possible investment, but it is certainly a really good one.”
“If you want to make sure that you are taking an appropriate amount of risk for somebody your age, you can do all of those things and just let the system work for you, and it will work for you.”
“This is how when you read the good news stories, which I'll acknowledge there aren't as many of as the bad news stories, But when you read the good news stories, it's about how gen X is paled by comparison. When we look at how well gen z is doing right in saving for retirement, gen Z's doing great because they've got all of these health full tools under their belts.”