On average, Americans have around $141,542 saved up for retirement, according to the “How America Saves 2022” report compiled by Vanguard, an investment firm that represents more than 30 million investors.
However, most people likely have much less: The median 401(k) balance is just $35,345.
…
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/30/vanguard-how-much-americans-…
“On average, Americans have around $141,542 saved up for retirement, according to the “How America Saves 2022” report compiled by Vanguard, an investment firm that represents more than 30 million investors.”
Duh!
What is important is what you have WHEN you retire.
If you are 25, you are likely to have a much lower balance in your retirement account.
taking all age groups, lumping them together, not counting any pensions they will get, is useless.
Many older folks will have lots of equity in their homes - and many likely will inherit money from their parents upon their demise before or shortly after they retire.
t.
Is there an award for the worst financial article of the year?
If so then this is a contender.
The problem is that it goes on with things like “The median 401(k) balance is just $35,345.” or a chart of “Retirement savings account balances, by age”.
The problem is that it does not note that when you change jobs you usually start out the new job with a 401K balance of $0 or that most people have multiple retirement accounts. Between Roths, IRAs, ,401Ks, and cash balance pension plans I think at one point my wife and I had around eight different retirement accounts between us.
That is not to say that people are not saving enough but the average account balance is meaningless and misleading.
On average, Americans have around $141,542 saved up for retirement,
iirc, one of the provisions of recently passed legislation is to change automatic enrollment in an employer’s 401k plan from optional to mandatory. So, no matter how much you owe on other debts, you have less to service those debts, and live on, because Wall St gets it’s cut of you paycheck first.
Steve
From the actual Vanguard report: “…These are just some examples from How America Saves 2022—an examination of retirement plan data from 5 million defined contribution (DC) plan participants across Vanguard’s recordkeeping business.”
So, the data exclude all the people who don’t have any defined-contribution retirement plan, let alone one (or more) at Vanguard.
Next.
…let alone one (or more) at Vanguard.
I should have said “…let alone one (or more) at somewhere other than Vanguard.”
"On average, Americans have around $141,542 saved up for retirement, according to the “How America Saves 2022” report compiled by Vanguard, an investment firm that represents more than 30 million investors.
However, most people likely have much less: The median 401(k) balance is just $35,345.
…
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/30/vanguard-how-much-americans-…
Not a measure of great value.
No indication of the savings versus age or rate of inflation.
Personal savings rate data:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PSAVERT
https://www.statista.com/statistics/246234/personal-savings-…
even here the data does not represent individual earnings.
Data is awfully easy to misrepresent or misinterpret.
Retirement has more to do with budgeting and controlling both savings and spending.
Individuals differ - situations differ - needs differ - wants differ.
Never assume everyone is in the same boat - let alone paddling in the same direction.
Howie52