When asked "At what age do you expect to retire?" nearly one-third of those with annual earnings of $750,000 or more answered "over 70." Fifteen percent of them say they never plan to retire.
Increasingly it is the wealthy who retire early, while poorer people are more likely to stop working due to ill health. And it is those in the middle who are most likely to remain in paid work until state pension age.
The 95th percentile, with a net worth of $3.2 million, is considered wealthy, facilitating estate planning and possibly owning multiple homes. The top 1%, or the 99th percentile, has a net worth of $16.7 million and represents the very wealthy, who enjoy considerable financial freedom and luxury.
While there are a few questions you'll need to answer before you can know definitively, the quick answer is that you can certainly retire on $5 million at age 65. Though you may have to make some adjustments, depending on your lifestyle.
Waiting until you're 65 to retire, on the other hand, can ease some of the pressure to save. You also have to consider how early retirement affects Social Security and Medicare planning. The earliest age you can take Social Security is 62.
Retiring in your mid-60s still makes sense for many people. At this point, you are old enough to have hopefully amassed sizable savings, but you are still young enough to enjoy active pursuits such as travel.
When we looked at just the unhealthy retirees in the sample—who accounted for 1,022 of the 2,956 participants—we still found that retiring one year later was associated with a 9% lower mortality risk.
1,821,745 Households in the United States Have Investment Portfolios Worth $3,000,000 or More.
According to EBRI estimates based on the latest Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances, 3.2% of retirees have over $1 million in their retirement accounts, while just 0.1% have $5 million or more. However, there's a surprising amount of information to unpack.
You would want to plan for a retirement account that can generate $120,000 per year throughout your retirement (80% of $150,000). Even without returns of any kind, just coasting on principal, a $6 million portfolio can pay you $120,000 per year for 50 years.
In fact, statistically, around 10% of retirees have $1 million or more in savings.
$2.6 million
That lofty sum represents the net worth of the median American family in the upper 10% of income, a range that most of us would deem wealthy.
Around the U.S., a $1 million nest egg can cover an average of 18.9 years worth of living expenses, GoBankingRates found. But where you retire can have a profound impact on how far your money goes, ranging from as a little as 10 years in Hawaii to more than than 20 years in more than a dozen states.
A little less than 40% of Americans under 35 own a home as of 2022, per the latest Census data. On the other hand, Americans between the ages of 65 and 74 have the highest median net worth out of all age cohorts, increasing their net worth from a median of $308,800 to $409,900 over the same time period.
The argument often made for raising the retirement age is to adjust for an increase in life expectancy. Over the past 100 years, life expectancy has increased 25 years, according to data from the United Nations. As individuals live longer, they'd be likely to use more benefits.
This number has been cited so often that investors may feel as if they're failing if they don't reach it. But that shouldn't be the case. In fact, statistically, just 10% of Americans have saved $1 million or more for retirement. Don't feel like a failure if your nest egg isn't quite up to the seven-figure level.
As mentioned above, $3 million can easily carry you through 40 years of retirement, making leaving the workforce at 50 a plausible option. Many dream of early retirement, but if you're lucky enough to already have $3 million set aside for this phase of your life, you could do more than dream.
Based on this, if you retire at age 65 and live until you turn 84, $1 million will probably be enough retirement savings for you.
Bottom Line. A $3 million portfolio will likely be enough to allow a retired couple to spend reasonably and invest with moderate caution without any worries of running out of money. However, if expenses rise too high, it's entirely possible to drain a $3 million portfolio in well under 30 years.
Americans need at least $2.2 million in assets to be considered rich, according to Charles Schwab's 2023 Modern Wealth Survey. The investment platform surveyed 1,000 Americans to determine the average net worth required to be considered wealthy in America.
Overall, the net worth that Americans say that is needed to be “wealthy” in the United States is $2.2 million in 2023. Washington, D.C. In San Francisco, respondents said they needed $4.7 million in net worth to be wealthy, the highest across all cities surveyed, and more than double the national average.
Those who work in public health live the longest – up to almost 84 years.
Research is mixed. If work conditions are good and the person is mentally active but not stressed, working longer can be beneficial to living longer. Many studies show the opposite however, that life is prolonged by earlier retirement.
Filing for Social Security at age 62 could also end up making sense financially if you're worried you won't end up living a very long life. While you'll shrink your benefits on a monthly basis, by getting to collect that money sooner, you might end up with a higher amount of lifetime benefits.