Updated August 1, 2026. Quick answer: every figure on this page is measured by Clear Money Guide from primary documents — SEC Form ADV filings and state statutes — and published as an open dataset with a permanent DOI. All of it is free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 with attribution, including commercially. Each statistic below carries the DOI you should cite. There are 20 of them, from four datasets.
For journalists and researchers: the underlying data files, methodology and archived copies are at our research index. If you need a cut we have not published, ask — [email protected]. We will not ask for a link in return, though we would rather you cited the DOI than this page, because the DOI will outlive it.
Retirement savings
Retirement savings statistics — retirement-account balances by age from the Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances 2022, computed across all families including the roughly half at every age who hold nothing. The median family aged 55–64 holds $16,600 against a mean of $306,404.
Retirement spending
Retirement spending statistics — household spending by age from BLS Consumer Expenditure microdata (n = 23,176), with the weighted medians and standard errors BLS does not publish. The mean runs about 30% above the median in every cohort. Open dataset, DOI 10.5281/zenodo.21786091.
Advisor fees
Probate and small estates
Transfer-on-death deeds
Medicaid estate recovery
The state-by-state layers
Three of these datasets are published state by state, and each has its own page with the full table and statutory citations: probate cost and fee model by state, small-estate limits by state, and transfer-on-death deed authorisation by state. Adviser counts and fee data by state sit at advisor statistics, and the probate cost dataset has its own statistics page at probate cost statistics.
How these were produced
The fee figures come from an original analysis of the fee schedules that SEC-registered investment advisers file in their own Form ADV Part 2A brochures — 176 firms, weighted to a screened frame, with costs reported as identification intervals rather than point estimates because the filings disclose ranges. The state datasets were built by reading the statutes themselves and are cited to them row by row. The full method, limitations and release gates are in State of Advisor Fees 2026 and on our methodology page; the rules we hold ourselves to are at editorial standards.
Figures last verified: August 1, 2026. The fee benchmark is pre-final at its current sample size and is documented as such in the report. State law changes; each state page carries its own citation so you can check a row against its statute.
Where the estate figures come from: the probate and small-estate statistics are computed from the by-state tables collected on the estate planning front door, each citing its own statute.
New this month: Medicare cost statistics — CMS National Health Expenditure figures quoted verbatim, including why we refuse to compute the per-enrollee number everyone else computes — and funeral cost statistics, where the cremation shift, not inflation, is what moves the bill.
Tracking next year’s numbers: retirement figure changes for 2027 shows what has actually been published — so far only the HSA and high-deductible-plan amounts — and puts everything else on a watch list with its publisher and window. No projected figures.
Before you use the 70% statistic: the same government page says a third of 65-year-olds will never need long-term care, 59% of those who do receive unpaid care only, and just 35% ever use a nursing facility. Long-term care statistics, quoted from the source.
Two new data pages. Gray divorce statistics — the rate for people over 50 has more than doubled since 1990 while falling among the young, and the median late divorce ends a 29-year marriage. Family caregiver statistics — 63 million Americans, and the money figures that get quoted least.
Life insurance. Life insurance statistics — ownership, coverage, cost perception and termination rates, every figure published with its population and its data year, sourced to LIMRA and Life Happens, ACLI, the Federal Reserve and BLS. It also names four numbers this category repeats constantly that could not be traced to any primary publication.
All the numbers, kept current. This page uses 9 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.
Using this with clients or a community group? Eleven of our protective guides are built to print as clean handouts — free to copy and share with attribution, no form and no registration.
Writing about any of this? The newsroom has these figures written as paste-ready sentences with their qualifiers already in them, plus the charts and the open data. Free to use with attribution, and there is no press list to join.
Reusing any of this? One licence covers all of it — free to reuse, adapt and republish, including commercially, with attribution. No permission needed. Figures we quote from the IRS, SSA, BLS or a state agency belong to their publishers and should be cited to them, with the data year.