Common sense in retirement planning dictates that you should aim to save 10 times your annual salary to retire comfortably, or reach a “magic number” of more than $1 million in savings.
But research on actual retirees shows that savings goals may be too high, at least for most of us.
The typical retiree has household savings of just $126,000, according to the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies’ 2025 Retirement Survey. Other surveys show that only half of retirees have any retirement savings.
And the thing is: Most retirees say they are doing pretty well.
In an April Gallup poll, 82% of retirees said they had enough money to live comfortably.
In the 2025 federal Survey of Household Economics and Decision Making, 83% of Americans over 60 said they were either “living comfortably” or doing “fine” financially.
And in a Transamerica survey, 76% of retirees said they felt confident they could maintain a comfortable lifestyle in retirement.
“If you’re asking, ‘Are we preparing adequately for retirement,’ all these numbers show that we are,” said Andrew Biggs, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
Do you really need $1 million to retire comfortably?
A few years ago, Biggs made a splash in a Wall Street Journal column with the provocative headline, “You Don’t Have to Be a Millionaire to Retire.”
What they say: You can retire with less than $1 million. Most Americans do this. And, as surveys repeatedly suggest, most of them are doing just fine.
The financial stability of American retirees is a subject of endless debate.
Voices in the retirement industry and news media exaggerate the perception of a retirement “crisis,” Biggs said, and overstate the need for every family to have a seven-figure savings bank for a comfortable retirement. He is not alone in that view.
“I agree that not everyone needs a million dollars,” said Anqi Chen, associate director of savings and household finances at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. “It’s too big a number for some people, and not enough for others. That one number doesn’t fit everyone.”
Most Americans retire with a salary of less than $1 million
Whatever the merits of a $1 million retirement account, most Americans retire with much less.
How well they are doing is a more nuanced question.
In the 2026 EBRI/Greenwald Retirement Confidence Survey, nearly three-quarters of retirees rated their financial well-being as good, very good, or excellent. And 73% said they were confident they would have enough money in retirement.
“It looks like most retirees are finding time,” said Craig Copeland, director of wealth benefits research at the Employee Benefit Research Institute. “But how we define ‘attainment’ becomes tricky.”
On the subject of savings, retirees are less confident.
In the Transamerica survey, only 56% of retirees said they believed they had built a sufficient retirement nest egg.
And this finding makes sense, given that only about half of the oldest Americans have retirement accounts.
“They’re doing OK economically,” said Kathryn Collinson, CEO of the Transamerica Center. “But if they suffer a major shock, such as having to pay out-of-pocket for major long-term care, their savings will quickly be depleted.”
In the Transamerica report, nearly 50% of retirees said they would rather rely on family and friends to provide long-term care than pay for professional caregivers.
The Center for Retirement Research maintains a National Retirement Risk Index, which estimates how many workers are at risk of not maintaining their standard of living in retirement.
In recent years, the risk index has hovered around 40% to 50%. It’s now 39%, meaning nearly 2 in 5 workers may not be doing so well in retirement.
For retirees, financial stability can be delicate
Overall, retirement surveys show that most retirees are making ends meet, but their financial stability may be fragile.
Of course, the same is true for millions of young Americans. A recent Bankrate survey found that only 47% of Americans have enough cash to cover a $1,000 emergency.
Biggs said retirees are more financially stable than younger Americans, as shown by their responses to surveys.
For example, in the Survey of Household Economics and Decision Making, the share of Americans who say they are doing worse than “fine” declines financially with age, from about 32% at ages 35–44 to 12% at ages 75 and older.
“Only a small percentage of older people say they’re really having a hard time, and those percentages are lower than those of working people,” Biggs said.
How much do you really need to retire comfortably?
If most of us don’t need $1 million in the bank to retire comfortably, how much will we need?
According to Biggs and other experts, the answer depends on several factors, starting with how much you earned over your working life.
According to federal data, America’s median household income is approximately $84,000. Even if you put 10 times that amount in the bank, you wouldn’t have $1 million.
Retirement experts say lower-income families won’t need as much income to maintain their standard of living: The magic seven-figure retirement figure is more appropriate for higher earners.
Most Americans rely primarily on Social Security for retirement income. Those benefits are progressive. The lower your income, the more of it you’ll get back in your Social Security check. And that percentage affects how much you need to save to cover benefits.
Social Security “replaces” 90% of your income up to $1,286 per month. The replacement rate drops to 32% for incomes between $1,286 and $7,749, and to 15% for incomes above $7,749.
In other words, low-income families “shouldn’t be saving too much for retirement,” Biggs said, “and they shouldn’t be saving too much for retirement.”
