Most Americans have less than $1,000 in savings

Saving enough for retirement is tough; we knew that.

But the goal can seem insurmountable when almost two thirds of Americans don’t even have $1,000 tucked away in a savings account.

Read: U.S. savers most confident in retirement–but should they be?

That’s the news from GOBankingRates.com’s latest study, which found that while slightly more than half of Americans (51.3 percent) report having some savings, an even greater majority of Americans report that they have less than $1,000 put away against a rainy day.

So how are they going to get to retirement?

Here’s the real shocker: 9 percent say their savings accounts have only whatever the minimum required balance is; 28 percent say they have zero saved, and 21 percent don’t even have a savings account.

While not having a savings account doesn’t necessarily mean those people don’t have a retirement account either, it does mean that it’s liable to be a lot tougher for them to make it through all the way to retirement without having to pull out some of whatever they’ve got saved in a 401(k) or other retirement plan if there’s an emergency.