$56,300 is the median salary for full time workers in the US.
$1,614 is how much Social Security pays on average per month.
$19,370 a year
34% the median full time salary in the US.
11.6% is the median percentage of income spent on healthcare in the US.
$6,530
Medicare covers that.
Dollar wise, the value of medicare and social security is now at $25,900.
46% of the median income for full time working people.
There’s a big conversation about savings and what people should have saved by the time they are 65, to keep up with inflation.
To get an idea of this, lets position this on a 40 year scale, for what a person who is 25 should look to have by age 65.
For inflation, let’s assume “hope” inflation is the same over the next 40 years as the last.
$1 in 1982 is worth $3.03 today.
Hoping the median salary holds with that, in the year 2062, full time workers should expect to average $170,589.
Assuming medicare and SS are unchanged and adjusted for inflation, that value should hold putting them at $78,477 values at the time.
This means a person should have a goal of being able to get $92,112 at age 65, to hold with the median salary.
401k’s generally pay an average of 8%.
That’d mean a person in 2062 to keep up with living standards would need to have $1,150,000 saved, to get an 8% return either off a 401k or typical investment in the market.
Is that number actually possible though?
According to the federal reserve, the average savings for seniors is $426,000.
Which adjusted for inflation, that’d be $1,290,000 by 2062, above the needed $1,150,000.
The issue though is that’s an average, where the other groups say the median savings for people over the age of 75 is $255,000 currently.
That’d be $772,600 in 2062, around $400,000 below the goal number of $1,150,000.
So is it possible for people who are 25 today to live in 2062 as seniors under current savings averages?
Answer is it’s mixed.
78% of people over 65 own a home, many having liquidity in it built up.
That is something that can be sold and scaled down to cheaper living, adding heavily to savings.
21% of people over 65 have pensions. Again, something which helps.
Another thing to factor is seniors tend to not need the expenses of a younger person, where a person who is 25, 35, 45 and 55 are all far more likely to be supporting a kid or multiple kids.
That said though, looking at inflation, it’ll be tough to imagine people living well unless they have at least $750,000 saved.