A fascinating (scary?) report on why a million dollars might not be enough for retirement.
“One out of 10 people who are 65 today will live past 95, according to projections from the Social Security Administration.”
Or (gulp) this:
“$10,890 is the median financial net worth of an American household today.”
Not surprised to learn that more people are not planning to retire.
“An annual survey for the Employee Benefit Research Institute found that in 1991, only 11 percent of workers expected to retire after age 65, while this year, 36 percent said they would retire after 65 — and 7 percent said they didn’t plan to retire at all.”
The piece confirms what my advisors recommended regarding SS benefits.
“If you delay claiming benefits past what the government calls your “full” retirement age — 66, for people retiring this year — your monthly benefits increase by 8 percent a year until you reach 70.”
I confess to finding it a little hard to scrape up a lot of sympathy for someone that can’t live on sixty or seventy thousand dollars a year. Guess it’s what you’re used to.
“The maximum Social Security benefit for a retiree at 66 this year is $31,000 — about the equivalent of drawing down 3 percent a year on a portfolio of $1 million. […] Still, even $61,000 or $71,000 a year — the combined Social Security and cash flow from the $1 million portfolio — isn’t likely to be enough for most people who have grown accustomed to living on $150,000 or more a year. And $150,000 is the median income of a typical household in the top 10 percent, roughly the ranking of a family with $1 million in net assets, Professor Wolff says.”
And the original factoid I posted earlier:
“A typical 65-year-old couple with $1 million in tax-free municipal bonds want to retire. They plan to withdraw 4 percent of their savings a year — a common, rule-of-thumb drawdown. But under current conditions, if they spend that $40,000 a year, adjusted for inflation, there is a 72 percent probability that they will run through their bond portfolio before they die.”