It is increasingly common for retirees to feel like they do not have enough money to live comfortably. Nearly a third of retirees feel like they’re spending more than they can afford, according to a new report from the Employee Benefit Research Institute. That’s almost double the percentage of people who said this in 2020.

The last four years have been a bit of a roller coaster.

“We had a huge pandemic. It’s been traumatic for so many people, their jobs and the economy,” said Mark Iwry, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a visiting scholar at the Wharton School.

He said the economy has rebounded well, “but many people are still hurting.”

In particular, many older people have retired earlier than expected, said Bridget Bearden, research and development strategist at the Employee Benefit Research Institute.

“Many of the retirees we spoke with have experienced a decline in their standard of living,” she said.

Inflation is partly the cause.

Teresa Ghilarducci, an economics professor at the New School for Social Research, said the biggest increases were in the things retirees spend most of their money on: food, housing and medical care.

People are also much more in debt. Two years ago, 40% of retirees had unpaid credit card debt. Today it’s 70%.

“And we’re finding more and more retirees with bigger and bigger mortgages,” Ghilarducci said. “And we also see that a significant number of retirees still have student debt. »

Some of these factors are new or worsening.

But Alicia Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, said the basic reality has been true for years.

“Between 40 and 50 percent of people who retire won’t have the kind of money that will allow them to spend like they used to,” she said.

One of the biggest problems is that almost half of people never work in a job that offers a retirement plan, and others only do so for part of their career.

Munnell said that needs to change.

“Continued coverage is really the most important thing we can do to improve the overall retirement picture,” she said.

That, and fix social security.