While preparing for retirement can be difficult for anyone, LGBTQ+ Americans face unique challenges that can cast a shadow over their golden years. For example, LGBTQ+ people over age 60 leave the workforce sooner, are less likely to believe that their retirement savings are on track and struggle more to pay medical bills than their straight and cisgender counterparts. They’re also twice as likely to report having experienced discrimination in the past year.
These findings are based on our analysis of data from the the Federal Reserve Board’s annual Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking, or SHED. We used data from 2019 to 2021 to compare the nearly 500 LGBTQ+ respondents age 60 and older with their cisgender counterparts.
