Public Opinion Research

Public opinion plays a crucial role in shaping public policy, including retirement policy. Elected officials and policymakers often look to public sentiment to gauge urgency, legitimacy, and political feasibility of policy proposals and legislation. 

Since 2009, NIRS has conducted a nationwide public opinion poll every two years with Greenwald Research, a respected national polling firm that specializes in financial security and economic attitudes. These polls provide a consistent, longitudinal measure of how Americans feel about retirement, pensions, Social Security, and related topics.

The longevity of the polling provides a powerful tool to observe evolving retirement sentiment and trends on concerns, emerging priorities, and the possible effects of external events like market downturns, demographic shifts, or legislation. 

The biennial NIRS polling consistently reveals a high degree of concern about retirement security. In the most recent survey, Retirement Insecurity 2024, found:

• 79% of Americans agree the nation faces a retirement crisis, up from 67% in 2020.
• 55% say they are concerned they cannot achieve financial security in retirement. 
• 83% believe all workers should have a pension so they can be independent and self-reliant in retirement.
• When asked about Social Security, 87% say Congress should act now to shore up funding rather than waiting a decade.
• Large majorities also express concern about the cost of long-term care (87%), health costs, housing costs, and rising costs of everyday assistance in retirement.

These findings reflect a powerful and persistent public demand: Americans want stronger retirement protections, greater reliance on collective systems like pensions, and more proactive government action especially for Social Security.

NIRS also has conducted research on Americans’ views of Social Security. In collaboration with the National Academy of Social Insurance, AARP, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, NIRS helped conduct a survey in late 2024 using trade-off analysis, allowing respondents to weigh real policy choices.

Some of the most striking insights:

• There is a strong belief in importance of Social Security. Among respondents not yet retired, 81% say Social Security will be “important” or “very important” to their monthly income in retirement. Just 4% say it will not be important. 
• There is a preference for raising revenues over cutting benefits. Fully 85% of respondents chose options that protect benefits (e.g. increasing funding) over benefit reductions.
• Lifting the payroll tax cap is top choice. The most strongly favored policy among all options tested was removing the earnings cap on Social Security payroll tax for incomes above $400,000.
• Americans reject benefit cuts. Proposals for further increases to the retirement age, slower cost-of-living adjustments, or across-the-board benefit cuts were widely unpopular. 
• There is support for targeted improvements. Many Americans back enhancements such as a caregiver credit and bridge benefits for workers in physically demanding jobs who cannot wait until full retirement age. 

Additionally, to better understand long-term public views, NIRS analyzed more than 40 years of polling data (15 distinct surveys, 50 iterations, over 154,500 respondents) across 1978–2023. 

Key findings from that longitudinal view:

• Social Security has enduring popularity. Strong majorities of Americans have favorable views of Social Security, seeing it as a vital government responsibility. 
• Confidence in Social Security grows with age. Older Americans report greater confidence in the system compared to younger cohorts — and people tend to view it more favorably as they themselves approach retirement.
• There is consensus on increasing investment in Social Security. Across political, income, education, and generational lines, Americans believe more funding should be directed to Social Security. Even among Republicans, a growing share say too little is spent today. 
• Americans have divergent retirement expectations. Younger workers often expect to retire before age 65; older respondents tend to expect retirement after age 65, reflecting generational shifts in working life and priorities. 

This long-run perspective underlines that Social Security is rarely taken for granted — public support has been sustained even as the political climate shifts.