The traditional approach to achieving retirement security for American workers has long been based on a three-legged-stool philosophy: personal savings, Social Security and employer-sponsored retirement programs. But today, one has to wonder what lies ahead for all those retiring baby boomers. The reasons? A growing number of large employers are opting to close off their traditional pension plans to new workers, while others are freezing the promised benefits to existing workers as well. The financial health of Social Security remains in question and individual savings rates threaten to be less than we might hope.

Each individual situation is different, of course. But since the goal of most retirement savings programs is to accumulate sufficient funds to replace some component of the income earned prior to retirement, we might as well start by looking at the elements that make up retirement savings in the three-legged stool.

Social Security--for good or ill--appears for the moment to be inviolate politically. Little wonder that seniors tend to be so incensed about potential changes. For most recipients, that monthly check constitutes roughly half of their income. (It's more for lower-income workers.) Despite the much-ballyhooed concerns about the financial stability of that system, the reality is that no one is getting rich on Social Security. At this point, one might well wonder how large those vaunted retirement income streams are if this monthly check represents such a large component.

What about those monthly pension checks? Traditional pensions have largely been based on an individual's length of service, retirement age and some approximation of the person's compensation at the point of retirement. These segments were most successful at providing an income stream to employees who had devoted their working lives to a single employer, while gradually accruing service credits. It's a model that still works in some industries--unionized labor forces and among public employers, for example.

It is not, however, a model that seems well suited to the mobile workforce that the boomers have engendered since their earliest working days.

Therefore, it should perhaps come as no surprise that the actual benefits being paid from those programs are less than one might expect.

According to estimates from the Employee Benefit Research Institute--based on data from the federal government's Current Population Survey March 2005 Supplement--the median retirement income from such programs is less than $7,000 per year, even for workers over age 65 who were receiving benefits from a private sector pension plan in 2004. While public sector pensioners fared better at a median of just less than $17,000 per year, they aren't exactly retiring rich, either.

In fact, the median income for individuals with earnings from private sector defined benefit plans is only about $23,000 per year, according to the data. Individuals with income from public sector programs report less than $30,000. Oh, and even with this group (many of whom at least ostensibly benefit from the traditional three-legged structure), a good number also appear to be drawing on a current source of income in addition to defined contribution programs and annuities.

As for personal savings, concerns about workers' savings rates have become a staple of personal finance columnists--and with some justification. While these concerns are doubtlessly overplayed (see my June column, "Redefining Personal Savings"), there seems to be little question that Americans, generally speaking, are not saving enough.

So what conclusions can we draw from all of this? Unfortunately, the Current Population Survey data offers no comparison with the preretirement income aspirations or the actual preretirement income of these workers. The statistics do, however, call into question the image we may have of today's retiring workforce: retirees basking at home, collecting employer-provided pensions that approach their preretirement salaries. It's a retirement that our industry has come to idealize and one whose images grace the cover of many a retirement planning brochure. Could it be that the dire retirement forecast trumpeted in the media is already here?

It could well be that today's retirees are leaving the workforce with incomes that are relatively modest, and the income sources identified above represent a reasonable replacement. When we're shorn of expenditures like mortgages, college tuition payments and commuting costs, perhaps we really can live on less in retirement--and those relatively modest sums can support the reality of a life embodied in those brochures.

Maybe those fancy retirement-needs projection calculators are unduly frightening us by assuming that our retirement income must keep pace with a salary level forced inexorably higher by an artificial rate of inflation.

Or maybe this is telling us what we already know: that Americans save what they can, accumulate the pensions that come with their choice of employer, and hope that those promises continue for as long as they can. Failing that, Americans will try to find other income sources: a part-time job, cashing out the savings they had hoped to pass along to the grandchildren or tapping into that 401(k).