Here is some quick retirement facts I'll place here that are related to data RJF wanted to see.
*A recent report by Jack VanDerhei of the Employee Benefits Research Institute should worry you:
Assuming you're retired for 35 years (generous, but not totally unrealistic), and factoring in nursing home and home health care costs:
83% of those in the lowest income quartile will run out of money,
47% of those in the second-lowest quartile will run out,
28% of those in the second-highest quartile will run out, and
13% of those in the highest income quartile will run out.
When the retirement time is chopped down to 20 years (to age 85), 8% of the highest quartile income earners will still run out of money.
*The mean and median values of IRA accounts is $70,000 and $20,000 respectively. The mean average is propped up by the fact that 6.3% of IRA accounts are in excess of $250,000
98.5% of taxpayers have IRA account balances at $1,000,000 or less.
1.2% of tax payers have IRA account balances at $1,000,000 to $2,000,000.
0.2% (or 83,529) taxpayers have IRA account balances of $2,000,000 to $3,000,000
0.1% (or 36,171) taxpayers have IRA account balances of $3,000,000 to $5,000,000
<0.1% (or 7,952) taxpayers have IRA account balances of $5,000,000 to $10,000,000
<0.1% (or 791) taxpayers have IRA account balances of $10,000,000 to $25,000,000
<0.1% (or 314) taxpayers have IRA account balances of $25,000,000 or more
*As of 2010, low savings rates, financial crises, and poor stock market performance had caused retirement savings account values to fall so low that 75% of Americans nearing retirement age had less than $30,000 in their retirement accounts, which Forbes called "the greatest retirement crisis in American history." - Wikipedia, footnote 7
*In 2010, the median household retirement account balance for workers aged 55 to 64 was $120,000, which will provide only a trivial supplement to Social Security benefits, but a third of households had no retirement savings at all. - Wikipedia, footnote 33
For the most part, it appears that American incomes and retirement balances are so varied, that calculated proportions of income spend on healthcare are difficult to come across. The following figures should make it clear that it is very high however!
*Fidelity’s annual Retiree Health Care Costs Estimate estimate suggests that a 65‐year‐old couple retiring in 2014 would need $220,000 (in today's dollars) in total to pay for medical expenses throughout their retirement (17 years for men, 20 years for women, on average), not including nursing home or long‐term care.
and...
*According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI), a 65-year-old couple with median prescription-drug expenses who retire this year will need $295,000 to enjoy a 75 percent chance of being able to pay all their remaining lifetime medical bills, and $360,000 to have a 90 percent chance.
*I have struggled to find any good data that finds ‘average returns’ on IRA’s because there are so many different investment portfolios. One company that I looked at is below, I found that most of the returns listed under 10 year rate of return had a tendency to fall somewhere between 5 and 8%. I found similar results with another investment firm called vanguard.
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https://www.tiaa-cref.org/public/tcfpi/InvestResearch