A handful of looming threats stand to destroy your retirement plans, a new research report warns.

A long spell of low or negative interest rates, a record level of public debt, a recession, income inequality and climate change are the top threats to retirees around the world, according to the 2020 Natixis Global Retirement Index released on Tuesday.

Five Threats to Retirement Security

• The long-term impacts of the recession on savings: The speed and severity of the global economic slowdown stemming from the COVID-19 outbreak are greater than those in recent recessions. Resulting measures taken to cover income shortfalls may dampen the savings needed for future retirement security. For instance, workers may make hardship-based early retirement withdrawals that are never replaced, and employers may reduce or suspend matching contributions to defined contribution plans, steps that may become permanent.
• Falling interest rates disadvantage retirees: Rates in the U.S. and other nations have been at historic lows for a dozen years, but central bankers lowered them further as part of stimulus efforts. Lower rates may require individuals and institutions alike to be more creative about how they prepare to meet longer-term needs and commitments.
• Fiscal stimulus raising public debt: The $12 trillion of fiscal and monetary stimulus provided globally has kept economies afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic, but will magnify already high levels of public debt. While low interest rates keep debt servicing costs manageable today, those same low rates may tempt policymakers to boost spending, further increasing public debt. In order to control spending in the future, governments could be forced to raise taxes, including on retirees, and reduce funding for retiree healthcare programs and public pensions.
• Climate-related disasters threatening retirees: As seen in brush fires in Australia, wildfires in California, and typhoons and hurricanes in Africa, Asia and the Americas, climate-related natural disasters are becoming more frequent and more severe. Air pollution, too, is worsening, posing greater safety and health risks for vulnerable retirees, including chronic cardiac and pulmonary illnesses. Such disasters also have financial implications, including higher insurance costs, increased food expenditures as crops fail, and greater housing expenses as storm severity grows.
• Inequality worsens economic outcomes: The issues of inequality – of race, gender and other factors – have come to the fore in the U.S. and other nations. Research globally illustrates race and gender gaps in both worker pay and access to workplace retirement plans, with implications for inequality in retirement income. Lower lifetime earnings and contributions to savings can result in imbalances that last past the working years into retirement, with lifelong gaps in savings and income that, in the case of women, are exacerbated by longer lifespans.

The handful of dangers make the odds of a financially secure retirement ever more remote.

A second wave of the COVID-19 outbreak could bring even more pain, the Natixis report says.

The annual report, which ranks 44 countries on retiree well-being and financial security, shows Iceland, Switzerland and Norway at the top, Bloomberg reported.

The U.S., at No. 16 among the developed nations studied, moved up two spots on improved measures for quality of life and material well-being — but that was based on 2019 data, so it does not include the pandemic-induced spike in unemployment this year.

For the past six months, lockdowns across the nation have forced millions of Americans out of work, or dramatically altered their income in a variety of other ways (like cutting off sources of paying customers).

Many of those unfortunate folks have had to turn to other sources of money to make ends meet, such as raiding their 401(k) or IRA accounts.

In fact, a recent survey reveals that 30% of respondents have already turned to their retirement plans. Another 19% plan on doing so, but haven't yet.

More than half of respondents said they spent the money they withdrew on groceries and necessities. Other reasons included job loss, stock market concerns, and penalty-free withdrawals.

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