It seems like this is heavily country dependent and depends on what infrastructure a specific country has set up around retirement. In general, I cannot see most people who have pensions built up and invested reasonably in the stock market during their life time - in the format of pensions, will have any problem keeping reasonable pace with inflation during that time. Inflation runs through every economy and it is intertwined with business. If you are reliant on state benefits for retirement, hopefully your country is setup to keep pace and many are doing just that. Once your mortgage is paid off, the amount of bills a regular person will have are quite small in comparison, so if money is managed well it can stretch far.