According to new research, almost half American households, about 45%, are expected to run out of money in retirement if they stop working at 65. This raises some serious red flags, especially as more people live longer and rely on their savings to fund retirement.
Just 16% of retirees say they have more than $1 million saved, including all personal savings and assets, according to the recent CNBC Your Money retirement survey conducted with SurveyMonkey. In fact, among those currently saving for retirement, 57% say the amount they're hoping to save is less than $1 million.
In 2022, 66.8% of older households had debt. Overall, the older the head of the household is the less likely the household is to have debt. In 2022 in families in which the head was 55-64, 77.2% had debt. That drops to 64.8% when the head is 65-74 and 53.4 when the head is 75 or older.
What Is the Average Net Worth at Retirement? According to recent data from the Federal Reserve, the average net worth for those aged 65 to 74 was $1,794,600, which is more than four times the median net worth of $409,900. This significant difference is because the super-wealthy skew the average much higher.
The $1,000 per month rule is designed to help you estimate the amount of savings required to generate a steady monthly income during retirement. According to this rule, for every $240,000 you save, you can withdraw $1,000 per month if you stick to a 5% annual withdrawal rate.
If you have $400,000 in the bank you can retire early at age 62, but it will be tight. The good news is that if you can keep working for just five more years, you are on track for a potentially quite comfortable retirement by full retirement age.
To crack the top 10% of retirees, your net worth needs to hit around $1.9 million, according to Federal Reserve Board survey data. For those aged 65-74, that figure jumps to about $2.63 million; for retirees 75 and older, it climbs even higher to $2.86 million.
Your net worth is what you own minus what you owe. It's the total value of all your assets—including your house, cars, investments and cash—minus your liabilities (things like credit card debt, student loans, and what you still owe on your mortgage).
Probably 1 in every 20 families have a net worth exceeding $3 Million, but most people's net worth is their homes, cars, boats, and only 10% is in savings, so you would typically have to have a net worth of $30 million, which is 1 in every 1000 families.
Fully half of the nation's working-age households will not have enough money to maintain their standard of living once in retirement.
About a quarter of 65-year-olds today will live past age 90, and 1 out of 10 will live beyond age 95. It's not uncommon for me to see people living another three decades after they retire. Based on those stats, I'm making my own proclamation: 65 is the new 45.
The 4% rule states how much you can withdraw from your nest egg the first year of retirement. Every subsequent year is that amount, adjusted for inflation. For example, let's say your nest egg for you and your spouse is $2 million. The first year of retirement, you would be able to withdraw a maximum of $80,000.
If your spouse dies, do you get both Social Security benefits? You cannot claim your deceased spouse's benefits in addition to your own retirement benefits. Social Security only will pay one—survivor or retirement. If you qualify for both survivor and retirement benefits, you will receive whichever amount is higher.
You can start receiving your Social Security retirement benefits as early as age 62. However, you are entitled to full benefits only when you reach your full retirement age. If you delay taking your benefits from your full retirement age up to age 70, your benefit amount will increase.
The ideal monthly retirement income for a couple differs for everyone. It depends on your personal preferences, past accomplishments, and retirement plans. Some valuable perspective can be found in the 2022 US Census Bureau's median income for couples 65 and over: $76,490 annually or about $6,374 monthly.
For example, if you have retirement savings of $1 million, the 4% rule says that you can safely withdraw $40,000 per year during the first year — increasing this number for inflation each subsequent year — without running out of money within the next 30 years.
According to the 2020 U.S. Census data, the median household income for those between ages 55 and 64 is $74,270 per year. That gives us a middle-class income range between approximately $49,500 and $148,500 if we're focusing strictly on this age group.
In a recent MarketWatch article, Senior Citizen Debt Statistics (May 2024), contributing writer Rebecca Henderson reported that according to Federal Reserve data from 2022, nearly 65-percent of Americans aged 65 to 74 held debt. And roughly half of those 75 and up continued to owe on debt they carried.
The top 10% of earners have an average net worth of $2.65 million. Even if you're squeaking into the upper class (the 80-90% range), you're looking at about $793,000. Moving down to the middle class, things get a bit more varied. The upper-middle class folks have an average net worth of around $300,800.