The number of people who can expect to have sufficient funds for retirement is inching up, but the picture for the country as whole remains worrisome.

Rene Jansa/Shutterstock Here’s hoping retirement won’t come down to this.

Those are the findings from the Employee Benefit Research Institute’s recently released 2014 Retirement Readiness Ratings. The nonprofit group, based in Washington, D.C., calculates that 56.7% of “early” baby boomers (born between 1948 and 1954), 58.5% of late boomers (born between 1955 and 1964) and 57.7% of Gen Xers (born between 1965 and 1974) will have the financial resources needed to meet their expenses in retirement.

Those figures are up 1.6 percentage points, 1.0 percentage point and 0.5 percentage point, respectively, from 2013.

A household is considered likely to run short of money – in the institute’s model – if assets can’t meet “minimum retirement expenditures.” Those are defined as a combination of expenses from the federal government’s Consumer Expenditure Survey (as a function of age and income); some health insurance and out-of-pocket health-related expenses; and possible expenses from nursing-home and home-health care.

Why the slight improvement in 2014? EBRI points to a growth in the market value of defined-contribution plans and individual retirement accounts, as well as an increase in housing values in the past year.

Looking forward, the institute points to several issues that could change some of these numbers – for the better or worse:

Retirement plans at work. Employees who have access to, and participate in, a savings plan at the office have much better odds of meeting expenses in later life. For example: Retirement-readiness values double for Gen Xers in the lowest-income quartile when comparing individuals with 20 years of eligibility in such plans vs. those with no future eligibility.

Social Security. Starting in 2033, the government will be able to pay only about 75% of the program’s costs (unless Congress acts to correct funding shortfalls). If nothing is done, retirement-readiness values for Gen Xers in the lowest income quartile, for instance, will drop to 10.3% from 20.9%.

Risk management, at or near retirement age. People nearing retirement should look for guaranteed streams of income. For instance, individuals who annuitize a portion of their defined contribution or IRA balances could mitigate the “variability in retirement income adequacy,” according to EBRI. At the same time, a “well-functioning market in long-term care insurance” could help reduce nest-egg shortfalls, particularly for middle-income households.

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Glenn Ruffenach edits The Wall Street Journal’s guide to planning and living the new retirement. Reach him at encore@wsj.com.