In an effort to assess the retirement preparedness of Midwestern populations above the age of 28, the King Pre-Retirement Checklist was administered to a sampling of 458 persons randomly selected and proportionally stratified by geographic location and community size. Factors examined were financial, social, family cohesion, mobility/health, safety/security, productivity, time management, recreation/entertainment, ego integrity, and cognitive processing and were derived from longitudinal studies, situational studies, and multiple definitions of retirement satisfaction by gerontological professionals, retired persons, and factor analyses. The checklist appeared to possess content validity and an indication of construct validity when the overall responses of 38 retired subjects were compared with their responses to an additional statement regarding their "happiness and satisfaction" with retirement. There was evidence of internal consistency and reliability within the checklist responses and test-retest correlations. Results indicated that respondents with certain descriptive variables (dependency on social security during retirement; being retired; incomes under $20,000; age 60 and over; Native American; and single, divorced or widowed) tended to self-assess significantly lower when compared to their counterparts with alternative characteristics. White respondents self-assessed significantly higher in retirement planning than Native American respondents. The factors involved with the greatest number of descriptive differences included financial, mobility/health, and safety/security, the same factors that received the lowest median rating for the population. (NEC)