Updated August 3, 2026. Quick answer: health care is the only major category that rises in retirement, and it rises as a share of a shrinking budget. It goes from 7.6 percent of spending at ages 55 to 64 to 13.9 percent at 75 and over. In dollars the change is smaller than people fear — $6,348 to $7,613 on our basis — but the direction is unmistakable.
What these numbers are. Computed by Clear Money Guide from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Public-Use Microdata, Interview survey, 2024 (released 2025). Figures are annual means per consumer unit, weighted with FINLWT21, with standard errors from the 44 balanced-repeated-replication weights. Our totals reconcile to BLS’s own published Table 1300 within about 2 percent. The Interview survey is not the whole survey — BLS’s published table also folds in the Diary survey — so our category figures run slightly below theirs, which we state page by page rather than hide.
The share matters more than the dollars
| Age of head | Health spending | Share of total |
|---|---|---|
| 55-64 | $6,348 | 7.6% |
| 65-74 | $7,504 | 11.7% |
| 75+ | $7,613 | 13.9% |
Because total spending is falling while health spending edges up, health takes an increasing bite of a shrinking budget. That is the squeeze retirees describe, and it shows up in the data as a share change rather than a dramatic dollar increase.
Why this number looks lower than you expected
Two reasons, and both matter:
- It is an average of everyone. Most households in a given year have ordinary costs — premiums, co-pays, prescriptions. A minority have a catastrophic year. The mean sits between the two and describes neither.
- Long-term care is largely not in it. Nursing home and extended care costs frequently fall outside what this survey captures for households in the community. The number on this page is not a long-term-care estimate and must not be used as one.
That second point is the one that turns a reasonable-looking figure into a dangerous planning assumption. Health spending in retirement is not an average problem. It is a tail problem, and tails are not what a mean describes.
What the mean is good for
Budgeting the ordinary year. If you are working out what a normal month costs, roughly $625 a month per household at 65 to 74 is a defensible starting point on this data. What it will not do is tell you what a bad year costs, and it is the bad year that ends retirements.
The full study · how total spending changes with age
Cite this
Clear Money Guide, “What Retirees Actually Spend: CE PUMD 2024 Interview-survey estimates”, August 3, 2026. Method pre-registered before computation; computation script and reconciliation against BLS Table 1300 published with the study.
General information drawn from the Internal Revenue Code, Treasury regulations and IRS publications, not legal or tax advice. Thresholds and dollar figures are adjusted regularly and several of the rules here turn on facts this page cannot see, so check the current year before you act on a number.