Updated August 6, 2026. Quick answer: there is no number, and the honest version of this question is not “how much do I need” but “how much do I spend, and what does my balance produce against it?” Those two are measurable. The headline figures the industry quotes are not measurements of anything.
The two questions that replace the one
What do households like mine actually spend? Measured, from the Consumer Expenditure microdata: the median 65–74 household spends $50,068 a year, and it varies more by housing situation than by anything else — outright owners spend about $18,928 on housing against $25,927 for those still carrying a mortgage. Benchmark your own figure by age and housing.
What does my balance produce against that? Also arithmetic, once the assumptions are stated. The ladder below gives the range at each level.
And a third fact that reframes both: at ages 55–64, 43% of families hold nothing at all in a retirement account, and the median family holds $16,600. The full percentile table. Being high in that distribution is not the same as having enough — both can be true at once, and most writing on this subject acknowledges neither.
The ladder
Each page below states where that balance sits in the measured distribution, what it produces as a range, how much of the work Social Security does at that level, and the risk that actually bites there. None of them tells you whether you can retire, because that turns on facts no page can see.
| Balance | Produces per year (3.5–4%) | Placement at 65–74 |
|---|---|---|
| $250,000 | $8,750 – $10,000 | between the 75th and 90th |
| $300,000 | $10,500 – $12,000 | between the 75th and 90th |
| $400,000 | $14,000 – $16,000 | between the 75th and 90th |
| $500,000 | $17,500 – $20,000 | between the 75th and 90th |
| $750,000 | $26,250 – $30,000 | between the 75th and 90th |
| $1 million | $35,000 – $40,000 | above the 90th percentile |
| $1.5 million | $52,500 – $60,000 | above the 90th percentile |
| $2 million | $70,000 – $80,000 | above the 90th percentile |
| $3 million | $105,000 – $120,000 | above the 90th percentile |
Placements are for ages 65–74 and describe retirement accounts only — a household with home equity, a pension in payment or taxable savings sits higher than the column implies.
The questions next to this one
- How long a balance lasts at a given withdrawal — the drawdown question, which is arithmetic rather than judgement.
- What retirement income averages by age, and the gap between income and spending that closes to almost nothing by 75.
- Retiring on a benefit alone — the situation a great deal of retirement writing declines to address.
- Retiring at 55 and at 60 — access and health cover before investment returns.
- The calculator, for your own numbers rather than these.
Sources
Percentile figures from our own reconciled extract of the Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances; spending figures from our extract of the BLS Consumer Expenditure Public-Use Microdata, Interview 2024. Both read 2026-08-06 and free to reuse with attribution — the studies.
Honest gaps. The 3.5–4% band is a convention, not a finding, and is published as a range because the underlying research disagrees with itself. No tax is modelled and no Social Security is included in the ladder column. Percentile placements cover retirement accounts only.
See methodology and corrections. General information, not financial advice. No advertising appears on this page.
All the numbers, kept current. This page uses 4 figures from our claims register — every figure we track is on one page, each with the year it applies to and a plain statement of what makes it move.