Most Americans rely on their company 401(k) to fund their retirement. With the typical plan the employee must choose their mix of funds. This adds anxiety and results in no action toward their goal. Plans should become more pension fund like and leave the decisions to experts.

Still, the survey of 1,500 employees last month recorded an 18.2% decline in overall retirement confidence compared to September of 2010. More telling, there was a 31.7% drop in workers’ confidence that they will have both the defined benefitassets and employee health benefits they need to support a comfortable retirement when they’re done working.“This represents the most significant drop in retirement confidence we’ve seen in the four years we’ve compiled the Sun Life Unretirement Index,” Wes Thompson, president of Sun Life Financial U.S., says in a statement. “Although the recession officially ended in 2009, average Americans feel that the downturn has not ended for them, which is substantially eroding their trust in their retirement future.”

It’s so bad for some workers that one in five polled say they plan to never retire.

Only 23% of working Americans say they feel “very confident” that they will meet basic living expenses in retirement — way down from 42% who felt that way last year.

Confidence in the future of Social Security has plunged over the last four years, to 9% in 2011 from over double that (22%) in 2008 while confidence about Medicare benefits has also plummeted, to 8% in 2011 from 20% in 2008.

Plan sponsors can change this statistic by taking a more active role in the design and monitoring of their plan. Part of this role should include bench marking their plan against plans of similar sizes.

Please comment or call to discuss how this affects you and your company.