Los Angeles is the city where residents are the least prepared for retirement out of the nation's 30 largest metropolitan areas, according to a study for Ameriprise Financial.
The other cities at the bottom of the list are Indianapolis; the Orlando-Daytona Beach-Melbourne, Fla., area; Charlotte, N.C., and New York.
At the other end of the scale are Minneapolis-St. Paul, ranked No. 1; Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; Nashville; Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto, Calif.; and Seattle-Tacoma, Wash.
The areas were scored based on consumer responses to a survey measuring the likelihood to have determined the amount of money needed to save for retirement and their actual savings habits.
Craig Brimhall, vice president of retirement wealth strategies for Ameriprise Financial said, "In some cases, local economic conditions have had such a substantial impact on people that their levels of preparation and confidence appear a bit out of sync."
That is especially true for those cities at the bottom of this study.
In Los Angeles, 36% said they have had a career set-back or layoff in the past 18 months, while 22% said they are currently unemployed but plan on returning to work.
These could be contributing factors to the fact that 37% of area residents said they had not given much thought to preparing for retirement and only 57% said they had put aside any money.
The nation's capital, Washington, had a misalignment between preparation and confidence; the people there are preparing, they are just not confident about it.
The area ranked 23rd overall; while 80% of its residents are setting aside money for retirement, 40% had negative feelings when they think about retirement.
On the other hand St. Louis (17th), Tampa (19th) and Detroit (21st) have the opposite problem. The preparation for retirement for residents of these three cities appears to be lacking, while they might be suffering from an abundance of confidence.
