The conventional wisdom says you need $1 million to retire. But research suggests that target may be too high for most.
According to a 2025 Transamerica survey, the typical retiree has only $126,000 in household savings. Yet in an April Gallup poll, 82% of retirees said they have enough to live comfortably.
In the 2025 federal Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking, 83% of Americans over 60 said they were either "living comfortably" or "doing okay" financially.
Andrew Biggs of the American Enterprise Institute argues the retirement "crisis" is overstated. "If what you're asking is, 'Are we preparing sufficiently for retirement,' all of these numbers say that we are," he says.
Most Americans rely primarily on Social Security. Benefits are progressive, replacing a higher percentage of income for lower earners-up to 90% for those earning under $1,286 per month.
The Center for Retirement Research says only about 2 in 5 workers may be at risk of not maintaining their standard of living in retirement.
Lower-income households "shouldn't be saving very much for retirement," Biggs says, "and they're not saving very much for retirement."