Why Only 3% of US Retirees Have Over $1M

Most headlines shout that you need millions to retire comfortably. The truth? It depends on you. 

Ari breaks down what “enough” really means, and how to design a plan that fits your lifestyle, health, and peace of mind, not someone else’s spreadsheet.

In this episode, you’ll hear real-life stories that prove one size doesn’t fit all. 

• A saver with $3 million who can’t enjoy travel because of sciatica. 
• A Chevron retiree with $487K, a paid-off home, and a $2,800 monthly budget living his version of freedom. 

Same markets, totally different outcomes—and both work.

Listen as Ari shares a simple framework to turn your lifestyle into a retirement number: calculate your after-tax monthly spend, annualize it, and match it to a conservative withdrawal rate. You’ll see why $35K a month might require $8M, but $3K can work beautifully with smart investing and tax strategy.

You’ll also learn how to avoid the silent killers of a good plan: sequence risk, poorly timed withdrawals, and outdated estate documents. Plus, how to time Roth conversions, structure income for flexibility, and protect your health and wealth over decades.

If you’ve ever asked, “Should I retire now with less or wait for more?” this episode gives you the clarity to choose confidence over comparison.

-

Advisory services are offered through Root Financial Partners, LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser. This content is intended for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered personalized investment, tax, or legal advice. Viewing this content does not create an advisory relationship. We do not provide tax preparation or legal services. Always consult an investment, tax or legal professional regarding your specific situation.

The strategies, case studies, and examples discussed may not be suitable for everyone. They are hypothetical and for illustrative and educational purposes only. They do not reflect actual client results and are not guarantees of future performance. All investments involve risk, including the potential loss of principal.

Comments reflect the views of individual users and do not necessarily represent the views of Root Financial. They are not verified, may not be accurate, and should not be considered testimonials or endorsements

Participation in the Retirement Planning Academy or Early Retirement Academy does not create an advisory relationship with Root Financial. These programs are educational in nature and are not a substitute for personalized financial advice. Advisory services are offered only under a written agreement with Root Financial.

Create Your Custom Early Retirement Strategy Here

Get access to the same software I use for my clients and join the Early Retirement Academy here

Ari Taublieb, CFP ®, MBA is the Chief Growth Officer of Root Financial Partners and a Fiduciary Financial Planner specializing in helping clients retire early with confidence.

Chapters

• 0:00 The Million-Dollar Myth
• 1:51 Diving into the Statistics
• 3:08 Real Stories of Retirees
• 5:27 Retirement Planning Insights
• 8:56 Final Thoughts and Disclaimer

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Only 50% of retirees over age sixty have a million dollars. That love blue hosts watching on YouTube. You're like, wait, I'm going to have that. Or I already have that. Well, an example of that. This might not be the episode for strategy that you talk about. I have case studies of your financial website. And my job is financial to the channel or to the podcast. Find what you feel confident about your retirement. Just a quick disclaimer here. Guys, be more smart about this. So appreciate it. You can of course submit you to subscribe. If you're listening to the retirement podcast, there's no subscribe button, but you can just listen or send me an email and say you appreciate the appreciate all of you who do tune into it. But I received the name is Arizona. I'm a certified financial planner. I find it posted the early episode on it. This very least blew my mind, guys. Okay, guys. I looked it up because some someone commented on a recent YouTube video of mine and said, hey, very nice of you to make videos for people who have$20 million. I have$2 million. And did you even know only 3% of people over age 60 have a million dollars? And I thought, there's no way. 3%? That's insane. I mean, clearly I'm just in a bubble and I'm talking to such a small part of the population. Now, I will say a lot of my content is directed towards those that have one, two, five, ten million dollars. Not because I'm trying to be mean or exclude others. That's where I can help. I don't want to make videos on best new credit cards and how to get out of debt. That's not my specialty. I do tax planning, I do estate planning, I do withdrawal strategy. That's what lights me up. So you're never gonna see me doing travel hacking or things like that, which is not bad. There's value to that stuff. It's just not what I do. So this blew my mind, so I had to look it up. So the Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances said 3.2% of retirees have a million or more in their retirement accounts. So I wanted them to clarify. So that's strictly 401k's IRAs, not including real estate. So many of you are like, oh, okay. So like the home equity, that correct. Just saying retirement accounts. And I found 2.6%, this is according to Investipedia, of all Americans, including those not yet retired, have 1 million or more in their accounts. And the Congressional Research Service reported only about 4.6% of households, over 1 million in retirement assets, and 4.7% have 500K to a million. So it's not as if it's oh 3% over 1 million, and then everyone else has 999,000. Far from it. Now the Employee Benefit Research Institute estimated 4.7% of Americans have a million plus, and just 1.8% have 2 million or more. Now, you'll see other articles. CNBC put out one that says retirees say they have more than 1 million saved, 16% of them. Okay, that's different than 3%. So it depends where you look. But the reason I'm bringing this up and why this blows my mind is you shouldn't feel bad no matter how much you have. Life gives us different circumstances. I had one lady, and many of you have heard this story, but if you've not, it's literally the story that to me is the most powerful that I've told, who said she was so upset that she had three million dollars. I said, listen, lady, I don't want to be mean here. There's people that would love to have three million dollars. So why are you upset? She said, I didn't need three million, I only needed two million. I said, Well, you have three, so you should be grateful that you did a good job and spend more and you put the work in, so kudos to you. She said, You don't understand. I said, Clearly, tell me, what am I missing? She said, Well, I have sciatica and so I want to hike and I don't like being on planes for long periods of time. And that's where I want, I want to get on a plane to go hike in beautiful areas, and I want to go to Machu Picchu, and now I can't because sitting in a plane is so excruciatingly painful that in order to go through that, I'm not going to want to only hike. It's just misery. So, yeah, I have 3 million, but if I had 2 million and I did not sit at my desk for the last five years, maybe I wouldn't be in the level of pain I'm in, and I could have enjoyed my retirement more. And that's when I went, wow. Okay, so that's the value of good planning is when do you have enough? You might need 500,000. I have a story I often tell of someone who um worked at Chevron for about 35 years, retired on$487,000. I remember that because I most people don't tell me the exact number they retired on. Most people go, about half a million, about a million, about two million, five million. He said, I retired with$487,000. A small pension was about$810 a month, if I recall correctly. If he's watching this and you're like, it was$812, you can comment below. But and then we'll all know who you are. But it blew my mind because he only needed about$2,800 a month to enjoy what he wanted to do. He paid off his home. That was his major goal. Doesn't live a uh very bougie lifestyle, very frugal naturally, and he's gonna work on spending in retirement because he's like, I want to enjoy my life more, but it's very hard for me to do. I know the value of a dollar. I have other clients that have literally 30, 40 million plus dollars with us because they got into NVIDIA really early or Apple really early. And they're like, Well, I never anticipated having this. I didn't have this growing up, but my stock did really well, so now I'm in a really fortunate position. It's weird to even feel like I have this money and it feels like monopoly at times, but it's true. And so there's no right or wrong. I'm making this just to say, yeah, the stats show 3% or 4%, or according to CNBC, 16% of people over age 60 have$1 million. To me, I don't care about that. I actually, you don't need a certain amount to retire. You will see articles online from different institutions. You need a million to retire, two million, three million today is only worth, you know, one million. It just depends on how much you want to spend and when you want to retire. So if you want to spend, and this is a common question, I'll ask, and I'll ask it of you, and that's what I'm gonna use to finish this quick episode today. Would you rather just let me know in the comments on YouTube or if you're listening on the podcast app, you can go to my website, early retirementpodcast.com, submit a question, or email me, Ari at rootfinancial.com. Yes, I see those emails, as well as my team. And so if you if I were to ask you right now, would you rather retire today and exactly spend five thousand a month after taxes adjusted for inflation, okay? Or would you rather keep working three more years and then you can spend eight thousand a month for the rest of your retirement? What would you choose there? Let me know and let me know the logic. Don't just say, you know, B 8,000, like we're past high school stage. So let me know a little bit about that. Not that you ever would do that in high school, but you get my point. So I want to know because the question I'll ask my clients is they'll come to me. I had someone who came, it's about four and a half million and said they'd love to spend$35,000 a month in retirement. I said, okay. And is that more important to you,$35,000 a month, or would you rather stop working? They said, I don't really hate what I do. I just want to retire when I can spend$35,000 a month. I said, okay, well, let's back that out for a second. Let's take$35,000. Let's say you want that every month, right? They go, yep, I go multiply that by$12. That's$420,000 a year. We're going to take a conservative 5%, meaning if you want$420,000 every single year, you need about$8.4 million. You could probably get away with about$8 million, and you could spend$420,000 every single year. And he's like, Well, I don't have that. I said, Okay, well, you have an option. You can spend less, you can spend$20 or$10,000, or you can say, I'm just going to work longer and take advantage of compound interest till you get to that point. Or you could do a mix. You could say, I'm going to spend a little bit while I'm working part-time and then shift. You might go, well, part-time's not even an option for me. Now, this example is, you know, obviously not one that applies to all of you, but I could do the same logic where I take, for example, if you want to spend, let's say,$3,000 a month,$3,000 a month, times that by 12, that's$36,000 a year. We're going to divide that by 5% for a withdrawal rate. Okay, if you if you had about$720,000 a year, you could spend about assuming you're doing all the right things, invested well, everything that we we preach and talk about in the podcast, you you could spend about you know$36,000 without concern. And, you know, if that's what would give you a happy life, then that's what you would focus on. So pretend right now you're like, I spend three to four thousand a month, my home's paid off, I live a simple life, I'm I'm happy. Well, great. If you have a million dollars, I would start looking into retirement. And you might be like, really? Because this article says I need three million. That article doesn't know you. Now, it totally depends. How much do you want to give to your kids? Do you want to pay for their homes? Do you want to give them down payments? What about healthcare? What about insurance? What about estate planning goals? What about tax planning? So there's so much that you need to go through, which is called our Sequoia process, where we start with a kickoff call to know you, then we show you how much income you can create, then we show you here's how the investments create that income, then we show you the tax liability, which is often someone's biggest expense in retirement. Then we show you the protection, the security to bulletproof your plan. So that's what we do. That's like the first month working with us, is we really bulletproof your strategy. If you're interested in working with Rue, there's what we love to do. If you want to use the software that I talk about in my videos, you can get access to that in the description of this episode. And I'll see you guys next time. Thanks, guys. Thank you all, as always, for listening to the early retirement podcast. I love getting to host these shows and make different content for you guys every single week. I've not missed a single week in years, and that is because I love getting to do this. Now, please be smart about this before you actually execute any strategy that you see me talk about or hear me talk about, should I say, please talk to your financial advisor, your tax preparer, your estate attorney. Please be smart about this. None of this should be construed as financial advice. This is for fun, educational, informational purposes only. Once again, just quick disclaimer here, guys. Please be smart about this. Appreciate you listening as always. And you can, of course, submit a question on my website, early retirementpodcast.com. If you, of course, want me to address a specific case study or topic. I will not promise I can get to it, but I respond to every single person. And if I find it will be helpful for a lot of people, I will absolutely make an episode on it. At the very least, give you some insight. That's it. Thanks, guys.