$955 saved for retirement? Millions are in that boat.

Yahoo ^ | 2/22/26 | Kerry Hannon

[Libloather]

How's this for a somber retirement forecast: The typical American worker has less than $1,000 saved for retirement, according to a new report from the National Institute on Retirement Security (NIRS).

"The data are clear: Outside of high earners, Americans are choosing survival over savings and hoping to catch up later," NIRS executive director Dan Doonan told Yahoo Finance. "Even for those approaching retirement age — 55-to-64-year-olds — the median amount saved for retirement is only $30,000. We're looking at a looming crisis. These aren't just statistics — they represent millions of families who are doing everything right but still can't get ahead."

The report analyzes workers with 401(k) and other retirement plan savings, as well as the millions of US workers who lack access to an employer-sponsored retirement plan.

The median savings — half have saved more and half have saved less — for all employed adults ages 21 to 64 tallied $955, per the nonpartisan group, which analyzed data from the US Census Bureau's Survey of Income and Program Participation.

Employer plans are a difference-maker

When you look exclusively at Americans enrolled in an employer-provided retirement plan, the numbers are more encouraging.

In Fidelity's 26,000 defined-contribution plans at companies across the country, covering 24.8 million participants, account balances last year clocked in at record highs, with an average 401(k) balance of $144,400 and an average IRA account balance of $137,902.

For these folks, the average 401(k) savings rate was 9.5%, and the average employer contribution rate was 4.7%, bringing the combined employee and employer 401(k) contributions to a record high of 14.2%. Fidelity's suggested savings rate is 15%.

[sauropod]

Bkmk

[Sequoyah101]

I quite agree. The parable of the grasshopper and the ant had a profound impact on my as a child. I see lots of grasshoppers that will want and forcibly take what the ant has set aside. They have been sucking the life out of me for more than 50 years since I started paying taxes. I’m bitter about that. This nation hates success and punishes it with progressive taxes. The main target is the middle class. The very rich can run and hide. Try to convince me that isn’t communism.

[AppyPappy]

My siblings have nothing. Nada. Zip. They just never had any interest in it. Never care about someone’s problems more than they do.

[Worldtraveler once upon a time]

--- "What's the crisis? Stupid people? I don't give shxt about idiots."

This is a funny article, citing the National Institute on Retirement Security (NIRS). Let's take a look at their 501(c)3 Form 990 for 2024, given they are housed at a fancy K Street address in Washington, DC.

National Institute On Retirement Security Full text of "Full Filing" for fiscal year ending Dec. 2024

Zero.

Zero income and zero expenses. And zero income for one of the directors quoted in the web site, for working ONE hour, according to the 2024 Forrm 990.

When was the domain name registered? 2007. And in 2024 they declare ZERO income and ZERO expenses and ZERO savings or assets.

ZERO.

[Cronos]

I am in my 60’s and to be fair I didn’t have a damn dime 20yrs ago.

I am at 1.3 now. God does work wonders.

you have 13 cents now? :)

[Cronos]

how could they confiscate your assets???

[af_vet_1981]

There is no problem with wealth, including retirement wealth, unless it is mismanaged. Wealth is meant to benefit others and oneself. There is a problem with loving wealth, hoarding wealth, or coveting someone else's wealth.

There are those whose circumstances, for whatever reason, have led to them being poor. They are always with us.

Mark 14:
[3] And being in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious; and she brake the box, and poured it on his head.
[4] And there were some that had indignation within themselves, and said, Why was this waste of the ointment made?
[5] For it might have been sold for more than three hundred pence, and have been given to the poor. And they murmured against her.
[6] And Jesus said, Let her alone; why trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good work on me.
[7] For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always.
[8] She hath done what she could: she is come aforehand to anoint my body to the burying.
[9] Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her.

[af_vet_1981]

If I had it to do all over again, I would have put 100% in an S&P 500 index fund and never touched it until I was around 55-60. I was always too cautious.

For retirement savings, This !

For spiritual savings, not this.

[fuzzylogic]

Once Trump was sworn in I moved ALL of my 401k into bonds...not because I didn’t believe in him, but because I just knew that some sh*t would be pulled.

Then the tariff talk started, stocks tanked 20-25%. I figured, while they might go down some more, I’d avoided the “big drop” and got back into stocks 100% just two months later, assuming it’d take years for stocks to reach previous levels - and they went right back up again, then beyond!

I saved myself YEARS of investing. My financial advisor just recommended moving a significant amount back to bonds, removing the risk as I *should* be able to cruise. So now I’m finally able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I’ll consider retiring in a couple of years.

[PIF]

1) A million isn’t much anymore, but it’s comfortable.

—

That will get you a older two bed apartment or one bed with den in the local retirement community. Both apartments will be in a very depressing old brick building. It will take an entrance fee of $133,000 or $96,000 with monthly payments of $2,270 or $1,845.

It goes up from there, just for apartments in the old building. Newly constructed very nice homes and condos cost way way more.

[bert]

If the company responsible for paying the pension benefits fails, what happens to the pension

Think Kodak.

[Tell It Right]

My post was with the understanding that one owned his own home already before retiring. In my case, with my 3.3% fixed interest rate on my mortgage, I'm not paying extra on the mortgage -- I put that extra into our Roth investments. But I won't count us as wealthy enough to retire on unless:

1) 4% annual withdrawals from our investments are enough to live on. In our case, that's tax free because it's in our Roth IRAs.

2) If there's debt (i.e. mortgage) then the wealth has to be enough to not just make the payments (on top of the 4% withdrawals above), but also pay off the debt immediately if needed. This is to handle Proverbs 22:7's teaching that the borrower is slave to the lender. If, for whatever reason, there's a dispute between me and the bank over what I can or can't do with my property, I want to be able to pay it off immediately. That means our wealth has to be enough to pay off the mortgage but still have enough wealth left over for the step 1 4% withdrawals for us to live on.

I'm quasi-retired. Whenever our wealth reaches about 1.5 million (4% per year withdrawal = $60K, mostly tax free in our case) + whatever the mortgage balance is, that's more than enough to live on in low cost of living Alabama. Especially in my case with my power bills averaging $70/month. (What I've posted about before on the energy efficiency self-reliance project of going solar, liking it, converting my 2 nat gas appliances to electric, and converting one of our two cars into an EV so that most of our transportation energy is also self-reliant.)

The low cost-of-living Alabama, plus the energy self-reliance project are an example of it being not just how much you have invested, but also if you make sure you don't need as much wealth for retirement.

[PIF]

My post was about how much a million will buy in retirement is the rest of the country. Not just the few who live in AL.

[Tell It Right]

We did the same. Before each kid came of age to work, they were taught over and over to look out in the driveway at our old cars, then look across the street at everyone else's cars, and ask themselves who's blowing their money on depreciable assets, and who is investing the money for their future. They were also told to hug their mother over and over and thank her for cooking instead of us eating out so that we'd have money for our futures. And they every now and then sat next to me at the computer (eventually a laptop) to "help me" make sure our spending was staying in budget, and the extra amount in our budget was appropriately going to our future (pay off debt, and/or invest in our Roth IRAs, make sure they'd be built up enough for us to withdraw from later if we had 3 kids in college simultaneously, but we'd only be able to withdraw from contributions portion of our Roth IRAs because us parents wouldn't be 59.5 years old yet when the kids went to college/trade school, yet the Roth IRAs and our Roth 401Ks would be growing enough for my wife and I to one day retire.)

We bought each one an old used car, much like mine and my wife's cars, and told them that we'd put $1K in his/her Roth IRA if the kid just so much as had any savings strategy and implemented it. It didn't have to be a savings plan that worked for me, they had to own it. They each did, and they each got a $1K Roth IRA starter from us. Three of the four kids went full throttle in saving and investing. Now that they work jobs with matching 401Ks, they each put in enough to get the match (Roth 401K, though the match has to go into traditional 401K because so far none of their employers have implemented the Secure Act 2.0 option.) And those three and their spouses (two of them married) also max out their Roth IRAs. One couple goes further and invests in a plain taxable account (because their Roth IRAs and Roth 401Ks are maxed).

We also paid for their college/trade school as long as each kid picked a career first, asked people already working that career what real-world life was like and how much money they could make, then ask that person what training has actual value. In other words, career planning, not college planning. So they left the house debt free, educated in a real trade, and with budgeting and investing experience.

[Tell It Right]

Fair enough.

I guess there are other factors too. Like if you live close enough to family (as we do) to not want to move to an expensive retirement community. There are also other things that get into personal preferences. For example, my free time bounces between visiting the grandkids, and/or getting my mother out of the nursing home for the day, or volunteering in church, including non-Sundays, and once or twice per week going to the Y to swim half a mile to a mile. None of those things are expensive habits/recreation.

Perhaps my perspective will change when I get older (again I'm quasi-retired in my mid-50's, projecting what I expect for life later when I'm both older and fully retired, but at the same time I'll have a little extra income coming in through SS if it still exists). Or perhaps I'll keep doing the things I'm doing, just more of them for a while (when I'll have more free time than I do now, but still be young enough to enjoy them, at least for a while).

[zek157]

Agree with not saying anything.

Telling someone to begin saving when it’s really too late is crass.

[dfwgator]

Of course the whole point is to condition those of us who did save, to bail out those who didn’t.

[Responsibility2nd]

FWIW...

 

Warren Buffett now advises leaving the S&P index formula for retirement.

[NorthMountain]

The government CONFISCATES

"Confiscate" is a fancy term for "armed robbery" ...

[MayflowerMadam]

“If you become accustomed to that you will find the pattern hard to change.”

LOL! You’re right. My sis and I are like that. When growing up we got clothes from “the missionary barrel” people donated to the church. When young adults, we moved up to thrift shops. Now we can afford to buy almost anything for cash, but still watch our spending. Our husbands just shake their heads. (Secretly, I think they’re glad that we hate shopping, clip online 8 coupons for groceries, and watch spending.)