Viability of Retirement Safety Nets Tops Clients’ Concerns

“Will Social Security be around when I retire? Will I be able to sign up for Medicare?” Clients are peppering their CFP® professionals with these kinds of questions, according to new research by CFP Board.

CFP® professionals report that the long-term viability of safety nets Americans have paid into for decades is among the top topics clients have discussed over the past 12 months. At the same time, half of advisors say they have seen clients take potentially shortsighted actions that could put their retirement plans at risk in order to manage today's costs.

According to CFP Board’s new report, Expensive Today, Elusive Tomorrow: A Survey About Affordability and the 2026 Elections, that tension is playing out across the country as rising costs reshape Americans’ financial plans. Despite external factors, the majority of CFP® professionals report that their clients still have a positive financial outlook.

Clients’ Hot Topics

The new research helps CFP® professionals understand what topics are top of mind for clients. Seventy-eight percent of CFP® professionals report that clients find Social Security’s long-term viability important enough to discuss, with 73% indicating that the long-term viability of Medicare is important. Meanwhile, 50% of advisors say affordability pressures are driving some clients to make reactive decisions that could have negative long-term impacts, including early withdrawals from retirement accounts (29%), reducing or eliminating retirement contributions (20%), or taking on high-interest debt to cover expenses (18%).

The report also found that:

• Optimism holds, despite affordability pressures and fear of missing long-term goals. The strain extends beyond retirement decisions. While 7 in 10 CFP® professionals (68%) describe their clients' overall financial outlook as positive, 69% also report that clients have grown more worried about affordability over the past 12 months. [SB1.1]

• Three-quarters of advisors say clients are acting on affordability, less so because of politics. Most of the top affordability concerns reported by advisors, in addition to Social Security and Medicare, are closely tied to public policy. Conversation topics with CFP® professionals include healthcare (88%), retirement plans (88%), tax policies (84%), gas and energy prices (56%), and interest rates (55%).

  Current costs seem to be shaping client behavior far more than the potential impact of midterm elections. Just 29% of CFP® professionals say their clients have taken financial action in anticipation of the November 2026 election results.[SB2.1]

• Financial planning turns short-term pressure into long-term strategy. Most CFP® professionals (85%) are making specific recommendations to help clients respond to affordability challenges without abandoning long-term goals, including stress-testing financial plans against a recessionary scenario (54%) and building or rebuilding an emergency fund to a defined target (54%). They are also steering clients toward strategic adjustments, such as revising retirement contribution rates (34%) and accelerating debt paydown (33%).

To learn more, read Expensive Today, Elusive Tomorrow: A Survey About Affordability and the 2026 Elections.