They’re close in age, but folks aged 55–59 are doingsubstantially better at saving for retirement than those aged 60and up.

That’s the word from Wells Fargo & Company’s annual retirementstudy, which found that the median savings of working Americansaged 60 or older is $50,000 against a retirement savings goal of$300,000.

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In contrast, working Americans aged 55–59 have managed to putaway three times as much as those 60+ workers, and as a result have$150,000 to put toward a retirement savings goal of $500,000.

Read: 3 steps to help fix the coming retirementcrisis

The study also found that those 60 and older didn’t start tosave for retirement till they were an average of 37, while thoseaged 55–59 started when they were 31.

That doesn’t mean they’re all exemplary savers.

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A third in that younger age group say they “plan to save forretirement later in order to make up for not saving enough now,”while just 21 percent of the older workers are planning to savelater.

In addition, 63 percent of those in the younger group and half(49 percent) of the older group say they “hope to earn more moneyin the future to save enough for retirement.”

Retirement is coming late for many of them, because of theirless-than-stellar savings records.

More than half (54 percent) of the 60-and-older workers saythey’ll work until “at least 70” so that they will have enoughmoney to retire. That’s compared with 40 percent of the youngergroup.

But working longer may not solve their savings problem.

Almost half (49 percent) of respondents who had already retiredsaid they did so earlier than they intended, with many citingcircumstances outside their control as the reasons: health (37percent) or an employer’s decision (21 percent) sent them to thedugout.

Just 7 percent said they retired earlier than they intendedbecause they had enough money to do so.