Aug. 17: BEST OF THE BLOGOSPHERE

August 17, 2026

CAAT survey suggests gap between expected retirement funding and “what actually happens when you get there”

Writing in The Globe and Mail, Meera Raman makes a very astute comment about retirement – those who haven’t yet experienced it have no idea what it will be like.

“There are some life experiences you simply can’t fully understand until you’re living them. Your first full-time job, getting married, becoming a parent. Retirement seems to belong on that list, too,” she writes.

That level of “non-understanding” appears to extend to how we all think we are going to pay for retirement, she continues.

“A new survey from CAAT Pension Plan suggests there’s a significant gap between how Canadians expect to fund retirement and what actually happens once they get there. Among working Canadians, 25 per cent expect personal savings to be their primary source of retirement income. Among retirees, however, only 15 per cent say that’s actually the case,” Raman reports.

In fact, she continues, the CAAT research suggests that retirees “rely more heavily on government benefits than they anticipated.” The CAAT survey found “that 58 per cent of retirees primarily depend on public programs such as the Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security,” she adds.

This doesn’t mean, Raman adds, that retirement planning doesn’t matter.

“Rather, it’s a reminder that retirement planning isn’t about perfectly predicting the future. It’s about preparing for a range of possibilities. We spend decades estimating what we’ll need, what we’ll spend and where our income will come from. Then retirement arrives and reality inevitably looks different,” she explains.

It’s important, she concludes in the planning-related segment of her article, to be flexible when planning.

“Flexibility may be one of the most underrated retirement skills. No matter how carefully you plan, some things only become clear once you’re actually experiencing them,” she notes.

There’s another takeaway from the CAAT findings that may seem a bit alarming – that 58 per cent of retirees “primarily depend on public programs such as CPP and OAS.”

Those programs are great, of course, but another thing many of us don’t know until we actually receive CPP and OAS is that the benefits are quite modest.

According to the federal government’s website, the maximum CPP benefit payable at 65 in January of this year was $1,507.65 – and that’s a gross, pre-tax amount. And not everyone works long enough, and makes consistently more than the national average wage, to qualify for the maximum amount. The same site notes that the average CPP payment this past January was $877.01 per month.

As for OAS, the maximum for those 75 and older is $827.17; for those age 65 to 74 the maximum is $751.97.

Even if you got the most possible CPP and OAS you would be looking at $2,300 a month and change before taxes. So the fact that more than half of retirees say they rely primarily on these benefits is worrisome.

The need for additional income, from either workplace retirement programs, personal savings, or both, appears clear. If you are already contributing to a workplace pension program, be sure you are participating to the max.

If not, the Saskatchewan Pension Plan may be the retirement income solution you have been looking for.

Open to any Canadian with available registered retirement savings plan room, SPP is a voluntary defined contribution pension plan. You decide how much you want to contribute each year – any amount up to your RRSP limit – and you can also transfer in any amount from other RRSPs you may have to consolidate your nest egg.

SPP then invests your hard-saved retirement dollars in our professionally managed, low-cost, diversified pooled fund. When it’s time to retire, SPP can provide you with options like a lifetime monthly annuity payment or the more flexible Variable Benefit. The additional income that SPP can provide, over and above government benefits, may provide your future self with a little more breathing room in retirement.

Check out SPP today!

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