Retirement Planning Statistics

I’m not sure if you’re at all like I am, but I love statistics. I love reading about not even just financial stuff, but the different statistics of all the different areas out there. And whenever I can kind of look and digest some of that, I find it very interesting. So I want to take a few minutes here and talk about some retirement planning statistics and what that is across American. Does this mean anything specifically to you? Probably not. You know you have your own plan or you hopefully you at least should have your own retirement plan and it mapped out for that. But again, this is just kind of the general stuff out there that maybe some of your peers or like minded people that are facing with. So we’ll kind of walk through some of these and what they may mean. So the first one is, there’s 40M American households that have no retirement savings at all. I mean they literally do not have an IRA, Roth IRA or 401K balance at all or haven’t even started yet. The average retirement savings account by age group. So from 35 to 44 that average group has a balance of $51K. From 45-54. that age group has a balance of $90K. And from 55-64, that age group has a balance of $120K. So think of that. It kind of obviously makes sense, right, as you age. Hopefully that compounding interest and maybe additional contributions over the years are adding up from that. So 40M have no balance and then the average though has that. But obviously there’s some that have substantially larger balances and obviously many that have none, right? Over a third of Americans don’t believe they are ever retired. You know I think about this quite often. You know generations far ago never really retired, right? They worked on the farm forever or they worked in the factories. And lifestyles, obviously longevity unfortunately wasn’t as long. You know people basically worked until they passed away. And then a generation or two then started to kind of define retirement. Pensions started to become more of a thing. And you know savings and all that sort of stuff. The Boomer generation is really defining retirement now and they’re enjoying retirement or many of them are or soon to be. But then now when we kind of look ahead, you know you see this year a third of Americans don’t think they’re ever going to retire again. Whether that’s just they’re concerned about finances or for other reasons, but they don’t they’re ever going to retire again at all. 60% of Americans are going to rely solely on Social Security for their main source of retirement income. The average Social Security is about $1600 a month. So think of that. You know if 60% of people are only going to rely on that. That’s not a substantial income when you think of just general expenses in today with utilities and if you know you’re fortunate enough to even have your health paid off. You know taxes and insurances and utilities and food and all that sort of stuff. It adds up pretty quickly, doesn’t it? 10K Baby Boomers each day turn 65. So that generation is aging at 10K a day are hitting 65. That entire population then, that entire generation I should say, sorry, is going to be of retirement age by 2030. So here in about seven years that entire generation in theory will be at retirement age and could be fully retired by then. The median retirement savings for Baby Boomers is $202K. But the average Boomer has a mortgage balance of $191K and some change. So I find that interesting. It’s almost very similar numbers, isn’t it, what they have saved, but they still have a substantial mortgage balance out there. So what does all of this mean? It’s just interesting information. Again, you know what’s important is what you have going on in your individual situation and how you’re planning for your retirement. You’ve often heard me say, retirement is like putting together a 1000 piece puzzle, but without the picture on the box to do that. These statistics are just different things along the way that kind of can make some challenges for this. So for you out there, if you don’t have a retirement plan yet. If you haven’t started saving or you have, but you’re not sure of the path down. Please give us a call. This is what we’re here for. We’re here to help you so you can plan to retire well and map out all of those areas that give yourself confidence in your retirement. So you don’t have to be one of those people to believe that you’re never going to retire. Hopefully you’re in a spot that you can get to work to work towards getting that job that you’ve always wanted in retirement. To enjoy the things you want to do, whether that’s travel, grandchildren or more and beyond. So we look forward to the opportunity of visiting with you for your no cost, no obligation visit here with Centennial Wealth Advisory.