

This will help you to optimize the savings you worked so hard to accumulate.

The earlier you begin contributing to a retirement account, the more financial comfort you can expect in your post-work years. When it comes time to draw down your retirement savings, it’s important to be strategic. If you want to be able to supplement your Social Security checks with other retirement income, start saving. Social Security benefits are great, but they’re not much on their own. That’s why the typical recommendation – that a retiree follow a 4% annual withdrawal rate – isn’t fool-proof. Our retirement calculator assumes that you’ll draw down your retirement income in a strategic fashion, letting tax-deferred accounts grow for as long as you can and spending from accounts with Required Minimum Distributions before you touch Roth accounts, to meet a specific lifestyle (either extravagant, similar to today, modest or budget-conscious). Unless you buy an annuity, you’ll have to make that decision based on your spending needs and on the performance of your investments. How do you know how much you can safely withdraw from your retirement accounts to live on? You’ve decided to hang up your hat and begin the post-work phase of life. It’s not a pretty picture.Īccording to Gallup, the average retirement age is now 62. Let’s say you’ve done a stellar job of saving for retirement. Now consider that recent estimates put a retired couple’s medical costs at $200,000, assuming both retire at 65, the man lives to 82 and the woman lives to 85. (among those who have retirement accounts at all) was just $65,000 in 2019. Research by the Federal Reserve found that the median retirement account balance in the U.S. In total, those households have $3.8 trillion fewer dollars in savings than they should have for retirement. households headed by someone between the ages of 35 and 64, inclusive. What does that mean? Well, the EBRI report aggregates the savings deficit of all U.S. The Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) estimates in its 2019 Retirement Security Projection Model that America’s current retirement savings deficit is $3.8 trillion. Words like “crisis” and “disaster” appear in plenty of articles that lament Americans’ lack of retirement savings.Īccording to the National Institute on Retirement Security, almost 40 million households have no retirement savings at all. You may have heard about an impending retirement income shortfall in the U.S.

In other words, the spouses of folks who start claiming Social Security at age 62 will receive less money in survivor benefits. The amount a surviving spouse can get from Social Security depends on the other spouse’s work history – and on when that spouse claims Social Security. If you’re married, remember that your retirement-related decisions affect your spouse, too. That means you’ll need to allocate a healthy sum to retirement savings during your working years, or risk a downturn in your quality of life in retirement.

You’ll have a much harder time getting by on Social Security than would someone who can handle a lower-middle class income. Say you’re a family of four with two high earners, a big fancy home and a high-roller lifestyle. The more money you make during your career, the greater the gap between your income needs and your Social Security benefits. Women, because they tend to earn less and work for fewer years, draw smaller Social Security checks than men do. There’s also a gender gap in Social Security income.
#AVERAGE MONTHLY EXPENSES IN RETIREMENT FULL#
If you don’t have 35 years of work under your belt when you start claiming benefits, if your earnings were consistently low or if you claim benefits starting at age 62 rather than waiting until your full retirement age (or age 70, if you want maximum benefits), then you can expect a small monthly check. Keep in mind, though, that your Social Security benefits could be smaller. In 2022, the average monthly retirement income from Social Security is expected to be $1,657. In 2021, the average monthly retirement income from Social Security was $1,543. In general, single people depend more heavily on Social Security checks than do married people. That’s why saving for retirement, either through an employer-sponsored plan or on your own, is so important.Īccording to the Social Security Administration, Social Security benefits make up about a third of the income of the elderly. Social Security benefits were never designed to be Americans’ sole source of retirement income, though. That’s why we have Social Security, a form of forced savings that diverts income from our working years to our golden years. We all know that saving for retirement is the wise course of action. Average Social Security Retirement Income
