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RETIREMENT
Group life insurance
individual life insurance
Prudential’s David Blanchett explores findings from the company’s latest Global Retirement Pulse Survey and says financial advisors have the tools to address the “confidence paradox” and help clients protect their life’s work.
“I think we have two themes that are working against how people plan for retirement,” says David Blanchett, Head of Retirement Research, Prudential, and Portfolio Manager, PGIM. While “people collectively were pretty jazzed about their overall situation,” Prudential’s 2025 Global Retirement Pulse Survey found that this excitement doesn’t translate to preparedness.
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I think we have two themes that are working against how people plan for retirement.
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David Blanchett, Head of Retirement Research, Prudential, and Portfolio Manager, PGIM
90%
Confident covering essential expenses
41%
Work with a financial advisor
32%
Have a written plan
The Retirement Confidence Paradox:
What Financial Advisors
Need to Know
The advisor’s changing role
The financial industry has evolved exponentially since Blanchett began his career 25 years ago. So has the role of the advisor.
“Advisors today do a heck of a lot more than just buying and selling stock,” he says. While they still help their clients build good portfolios, they also “help them understand how to make better financial decisions and get on a path to retirement and financial security.”
Blanchett admits that the word “retirement” is not one of his favorites. “The problem we have in our society is that there are unique connotations to the word ‘retirement,’” he says.
If he had his way, he would ask advisors to highlight financial independence, which is the goal of most people. Personally, that’s how he feels about his own retirement. “I actually don’t want to retire. I want to be financially independent,” he says. “I want to give myself the option at some point in time in the future to do something different than what I’m doing today.”
Blanchett adheres to the idea that people will increasingly take time off from work throughout their lives rather than waiting until their 60s to do so—what he calls “mini retirements.” Proper retirement planning can enable people to have the financial independence to increasingly pursue non-linear careers, which can include mini retirements and job changes.
“It’s hard for us to know who we’re going to be in 10 or 20 or 30 years,” he says. “The key is helping people acknowledge that and giving them the opportunity to say, ‘Let’s prepare you for whoever you want to become in the future.’”
Retirement vs. financial independence
Most Americans retire about three years before they expect to, usually because of a health scare, an unexpected job loss or a family situation they need to focus on. “That’s where advisors can be so critical,” Blanchett says.
Financial advisors can help clients envision their future selves—something consumers of all ages must learn to do so they can properly prepare for retirement. Figuring out how individuals see their “golden years,” which look quite different to different people, helps them take steps today to turn these dreams into reality.
Blanchett’s research on safe withdrawal rates illustrates the disconnect, noting that the 4% rule—that someone can safely withdraw 4% of their portfolio’s initial value in the first year and then annually adjust future withdrawals for inflation to avoid running out of money for 30 years—is “the worst-case scenario,” he says. “Some retirees could have taken out 10% in the first year of retirement. So, we have this kind of idiosyncratic risk about when we retire, our unique longevity that is making retirement significantly more complicated.”
Advisors can help people protect what they’ve spent years socking away, while also helping them change their mindsets and spend enough to enjoy the retirement they worked hard to earn.
Steer clear of the “A” word
One of the most interesting findings from the Prudential survey involves the gap between investor preferences and behavior. Although two-thirds of mass affluent adults prefer lifetime monthly income over one lump sum, only 30% use annuities as part of their retirement strategies.
A few things are hampering the use of annuities. For one, Blanchett notes, media coverage has helped shape the negative perception against annuities. In reality, “the vast majority of advisors are paid based upon assets under management. Annuities don’t fit in that framework,” he says. “Even fiduciaries have these interesting conflicts when it comes to creating strategies for retirement income.”
Blanchett’s research with wealth and retirement expert Michael Finke examined how people use five different wealth types to fund spending.
“The evidence is just incredibly clear,” Blanchett says. “People don’t want to spend down their portfolio. I think that’s because of fear. We train people for 30 or 40 years to look at their balance every quarter. They don’t want to see that go down.”
THE CONFIDENCE PARADOX: 2025 GLOBAL RETIREMENT PULSE SURVEY
Prudential’s inaugural Global Retirement Pulse Study surveyed thousands of mass-affluent consumers across the US, Mexico, Japan and Brazil to provide a comparative view of how people are thinking about and preparing for retirement. The findings highlight tremendous opportunity for financial professionals to help their clients protect their life’s work.
See survey findings
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As he points out, there’s a discrepancy between people’s beliefs that they will be able to cover their essential expenses during retirement and the reality of how they act on that belief. According to the survey, nearly 90% of mass affluent people—those with more than $100,000 in investable assets—feel confident they can cover their essential expenses in retirement, but only 41% work with a financial advisor and just 32% have a written plan.
Prudential is calling this the “confidence paradox,” and suggests that many mass affluent investors are overestimating their retirement readiness as challenges—longevity risk, personal responsibility, demographic shifts—are intensifying.
Better financial preparation through saving, holistic retirement income planning that includes protected income sources, and a strong relationship with a financial advisor can help people navigate complexity and withstand the inevitable uncertainties. For financial advisors, there’s great opportunity to help clients not only save for retirement but also create true financial independence.
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I actually don’t want to retire. I want to be financially independent. I want to give myself the option at some point in time in the future to do something different than what I’m doing today.
David Blanchett, Head of Retirement Research, Prudential, and Portfolio Manager, PGIM
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The evidence is just incredibly clear. People don’t want to spend down their portfolio. I think that’s because of fear. We train people for 30 or 40 years to look at their balance every quarter. They don’t want to see that go down.
David Blanchett, Head of Retirement Research, Prudential, and Portfolio Manager, PGIM
“Advisors can build you a spectacular portfolio,” he says, “but no one’s suggesting you should allocate all of your savings to an annuity.”
The solution is his and Finke’s concept of “license to spend,” which refers to the psychological and financial confidence retirees gain by converting savings into guaranteed lifetime income.
“That could be Social Security, it could be a defined benefits pension, it could be a lifetime annuity,” he says. “The key then is getting people more comfortable transferring some or more of their wealth into strategies and product solutions that are explicitly protected for life.”
Financial advisors can be the linchpin in that plan, helping their clients transform their later lives by introducing protected income strategies that give them the license to spend and achieve financial independence.
Nearly
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