Average Retirement Savings by Age: How Much Should You Have Saved?

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Having enough retirement savings means the difference between living comfortably and scraping by on Social Security in your golden years. This guide breaks down how much Americans typically have saved by age and offers benchmarks and expert advice to help you figure out if you’re on track.

What Are Retirement Savings?

Retirement savings are funds you put aside after you stop working. While any investment or bank account might be considered retirement savings if you earmark the money for that purpose and leave it untouched, retirement savings typically include dedicated retirement accounts such as:

Individual Retirement Account

An individual retirement account, or IRA, is a tax-advantaged retirement savings or investment account you open and manage yourself.

401(k)

A 401(k) is an employer-sponsored retirement savings plan that provides tax advantages for saving and investing for retirement. Some employers match a portion of employees’ contributions to their accounts.

Pension

A pension is a retirement benefit paid for and administered by an employer or professional organization for its employees or members. Pensions provide these individuals with income and sometimes additional benefits in retirement.

Annuity

An annuity is an insurance contract that provides you with income in exchange for a tax-advantaged lump-sum premium payment or a series of premium payments.

Thrift Savings Plan

Thrift savings plans are retirement savings and investment plans for federal government workers and members of the uniformed services. The plans work similarly to 401(k)s.

Health Savings Account

Health savings accounts let workers with high-deductible health plans save money for eligible healthcare expenses. Although HSAs aren’t retirement savings plans, per se, you can use leftover funds to pay Medicare premiums or withdraw them penalty-free for any purpose in retirement.

How Much Does the Average Person Have in Retirement Savings?

U.S. retirement accounts have an average balance of $87,000, according to the most recent Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances. However, retirement savings vary considerably by age.

Here are the average retirement savings balances broken down by age.

As you might expect, Americans ages 65 to 74 have the highest average balance, followed by the 55-to-64 age group. Individuals over age 74 have lower balances, possibly because they’ve already spent down some of their savings.

How Much Do I Need To Retire?

How much you’ll need once you retire is dependent on how much you’ll spend — and that could be more than you think.

In GOBankingRates’ recent Retirement at Every Budget Survey, more than half of respondents said they expect to spend $2,000 per month or less in retirement. Over 40% of respondents between the ages of 18 to 24 and at least 25% of respondents in all other age groups expect to spend less than $1,500 per month. Fewer than 11% of every age group expect to spend over $4,000.

These expectations suggest that Americans might have unrealistic views of what their actual expenses will be once they retire.

The 2022 Consumer Expenditure Survey from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that individuals ages 65 to 74 spend $60,844 per year, or $5,070 per month. Spending drops with age, but people 75 and older still spend $4,457 a month, on average.

Retirement Planning Worksheet

While no magic number can tell you exactly how much you’ll need, the retirement planning worksheet from the U.S. Department of Labor, located here, can help. It walks you through calculating your current and future assets, income and expenses and projects your future needs.

Social Security

As you work through your future income and expenses, remember to include Social Security benefits as income. If you need $6,000 per month to support your retirement lifestyle, for example, and your Social Security benefit is $2,000 per month, you only need to draw $4,000 per month from your savings.

You can find how how much Social Security you’re scheduled to receive by reviewing your statement on the My Social Security website, located here.

Here are some guidelines to consider as you evaluate your retirement income needs.

Your Salary at Retirement

One guideline is based on your salary at the time you retire. This “salary multiplier” method of estimating post-retirement needs bases recommendations on multiples of earnings rather than an arbitrary dollar amount. For example, experts often recommend that you have 10 times your salary set aside by age 65. For someone earning $100,000 per year, that translates to $1 million in savings by age 65.

The multiplier is a starting point you adjust for factors like when you plan to retire, what kind of lifestyle you hope to enjoy, anticipated medical expenses and life expectancy.

What Is the 4% Rule in Retirement?

Another guideline, called the 4% Rule, says that for a 30-year retirement, you can withdraw 4% of your portfolio in the first year, and then withdraw 4%, adjusted for inflation, in subsequent years.

To use this method, you’ll have to anticipate your annual expenses and inflation rates — the average from 1960 to 2024 was 3.8%, according to WorldData.info. If you forecast your expenses to be 4,000 per month, for example, you’ll need $48,000 in the first year.

Under the 4% rule, you’ll need a $1.2 million balance to start, which is $48,000 divided by 0.04.

How Much Should I Have Saved for Retirement at Every Age?

Investment brokerages like Merrill, Fidelity and T. Rowe Price use salary multipliers to set savings benchmarks — That is, they base recommendations on multiples of earnings, such as one or times your salary. So, for example, if the multiplier for your age group is two times your salary and you earn $60,000, you would hope to have $120,000 in retirement savings (2 x $60,000 = $120,000).

While each approaches this method slightly differently, their benchmarks are quite similar. The following chart combines all three brokerages’ recommendations.

You’ll note that the recommendations offer a range of multipliers rather than a fixed savings goal. The amount of savings needed by any individual retiree varies according to fixed expenses, lifestyle preferences, healthcare needs and other factors. Whereas a retiree who plans to travel extensively might need 13 times their preretirement salary saved, a retiree with few expenses and a frugal lifestyle might be comfortable with seven times their preretirement earnings.

How To Maximize Your Retirement Savings

Experts recommend trying to put aside 15% of your pre-tax income for retirement. One or more tax-advantaged accounts can help get you there faster.

401(k)

That 15% savings recommendation includes matching funds you get from your 401(k) or other employer-sponsored retirement plan. If your employer offers such a plan and matches employee contributions, contributing up to the match limit is the best way to maximize your savings.

Health Savings Account

Employees who have a qualified high-deductible health insurance plan can open a health savings account. These are the contribution limits:

For 2025:

• Up to $4,300
• $8,550 for a family plan

For 2026:

• Up to $4,400
• $8,750 for a family plan

Plus, you can have a $1,000 catch-up contribution if you’re age 55 or older. Although you can designate all the money for medical expenses, you also have the option of investing some or all of the funds for use later.

You fund the account with pretax money. The money grows tax-free, and you can withdraw it tax-free to use toward qualified medical expenses. Once you turn 65, you can use it to offset Medicare premiums and other health-related costs. Or you can withdraw it for any reason you want, although in that case, you’ll pay income tax on the withdrawal.

Individual Retirement Account

You have until Tax Day in April 2026 to contribute up to $7,000 to an individual retirement account for 2025, plus $1,000 if you’re age 50 or older. Traditional IRAs are funded with pretax income and grow tax-free. You’ll pay income tax on the money when you withdraw it in retirement. Roth IRAs are funded with after-tax income and grow tax-free. You withdraw the funds tax-free in retirement.

How To Know If You’re Behind in Saving for Retirement

Ask yourself the following to find out if your retirement savings might be behind schedule.

• Are you saving at least 15% of your income for retirement?
• Do you have less than your annual salary saved by age 35, less than three times by age 50 or less than five and a half times by age 60?
• Have you prepared retirement income and expense projections?

How To Save More Money for Retirement If You’re Not Saving Enough

If you’re falling short of meeting your retirement savings goals, you’re not alone. A recent Gallup poll found that just 45% of non-retired Americans expect to have enough money to live comfortably in retirement. But it’s not too late to catch up.

If the reason you’re not saving enough is that you just don’t have the money, a good first step is to create a budget so you can see what’s coming in and out. You can also see expenses that can be cut to free up money for saving. You can work on paper or in a spreadsheet, listing all of your expenditures and all of your income. Or use one of the many budgeting apps available, including:

• EveryDollar: Ramsey Solutions EveryDollar app is a zero-based budgeting tool that helps you earmark every dollar for a specific purpose. The basic version is free.
• Mint: The Mint budgeting app is now part of Credit Karma. While it’s still rolling out some features, Credit Karma lets you see all your accounts and spending in one place so you can track progress toward your savings goals.
• You Need a Budget: The popular YNAB app is another zero-based budgeting app that also helps you identify your financial priorities and make decisions that further your goals.
• Rocket Money: The Rocket Money app from Rocket Mortgage helps you keep track of subscriptions and other bills and automatically cancel subscriptions you don’t use.

Once you’ve cut back as much spending as you can, consider taking a second job or a side hustle if your income still doesn’t allow you to save.

Nonretirement Savings and Investments by Age

Dedicated retirement accounts are the ideal way to save for retirement because they provide tax incentives that can save you tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars over a lifetime. However, they’re not the only way to save. Regular savings and investments are an important part of your overall financial health. What’s more, they can do double duty by providing you with additional income after you retire.

The data compiled for the tables below are from the Federal Reserve’s most recent Survey of Consumer Finances. The statistics take into account the following:

1. The median savings balance: This number represents the middle value when comparing all savings in a given age group. It is a more accurate account of savings than the mean balance because outliers don’t strongly affect this value. Just as many accounts have less than the median balance as accounts with a greater balance.
2. The mean savings balance: This balance represents the average amount of money people have saved. It is calculated by adding up all savings and dividing the amount by the number of accounts. Outliers — very high and very low balances — can skew the mean much more than they can affect the median.

Here’s a breakdown of average savings by age in each respective category.

Transaction Accounts

Transaction accounts refer to general spending accounts and accounts used to transfer money, such as checking and savings accounts.

Here’s a breakdown of the median and mean balances each age group has in these types of accounts.

A couple of takeaways from this data:

• Individuals ages 55 to 64 contribute the most to these accounts.
• Retirees quickly begin spending down their balances after age 74, which underscores their importance as a source of retirement income.

Financial Assets

Financial assets are nonphysical things of value, such as stocks, bonds and bank accounts, including checking and savings accounts and certificates of deposit. Unlike physical assets, such as real estate, financial assets are typically liquid, which means they consist of cash or are relatively cheap and easy to convert to cash, so you can use them to help fund your retirement.

To help you see how your financial assets measure up, here are the median and mean values broken down by age.

When you compare these balances to balances for transaction accounts, it becomes clear that all age groups hold the bulk of their financial assets in accounts other than checking and savings accounts.

How Much Should You Be Saving?

According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the current savings rate was 3% of disposable income as of March. That means contributing an amount greater than this figure into a savings account after every payday means saving more than the average American.

Using the 50/30/20 Rule as a Savings Guide

Those who want to stay on top of their finances should consider following the 50/30/20 rule — 50% of income spent on expenses, 30% on discretionary items and 20% toward savings.

Here’s a breakdown of median U.S. salaries for the first quarter of 2025 from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and how much of that income should go toward savings, according to the 50/30/20 rule:

As the data shows, salaries peak during the ages of 45 to 54, then drop off as more individuals retire, limiting their ability to save. While working individuals in the older age groups might continue saving, those who’ve already retired might be spending down their savings instead.

How To Maximize Your Personal Savings

Whether you’re building an emergency fund — which should always be your first priority — or saving toward other goals, it’s important to put your extra cash to work. Some of the popular methods include using:

• FDIC-insured high-yield savings accounts
• Certificates of deposit
• Treasury bonds

Final Take

How much people save for retirement differs based age, income, education and other financial priorities. Following established retirement savings guidelines for your age group while also setting aside money for personal savings and investing will help to ensure that you meet your retirement needs without sacrificing savings for emergencies and shorter-term financial goals.

David Granahan contributed to the reporting for this article.

Information is accurate as of May 13, 2025.

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