Every week we are inundated with creative media stories saying we need $1 million or $2 million or $4 million or whatever in order to retire, and hardly anyone has enough, therefore, everyone is going to die in poverty.
Except, one economist points out that most retirees do not have $1 million and are doing quite fine. Real world data paints a different picture from that presented by the media.
Most Americans retire with nowhere near $1 million in savings. The notion that we need that much money to fund a secure retirement arises from opinion polls, personal-finance columns and two or three rules of thumb that suffuse financial planning.
Do we really need $1M in retirement savings? Not even close, one top economist says (msn.com)
To prove his point, the economist looked at responses to the federal Survey of Household Economics and Decision making between 2019 and 2022.
The survey asked retirement-age Americans, aged 65 to 74, how well they were managing financially.
A majority, roughly 85%, said they were just fine: They were living comfortably, or at least “doing OK.”
He says most retirees are living comfortably on Social Security and other benefits. They are not, however, living extravagant lives and traveling about the world, as the media suggests everyone does in retirement.
From the story, there is no clear answer, there is a range of conflicting data, and there is acknowledgement that most probably do not need, at least today, $1 million or more to retire and “do OK”. That, of course, implies that to do more than “just OK”, you probably do want to have $1 million or more in savings or investments.
