The average 40 year old has $63,000 in savings

An average is totally misleading, especially in the US where income inequality is the highest of the developed nations - source here.

The underlying message though is that most Americans are screwed come retirement age. Good job we've got good, affordable healthcare...

This number was accurate for me, and I did very, very little to prepare in my early years.

My recommendation to all the young naysayers on this thread - put what you can now into an index fund, and ignore it for a decade.

Misleading headline. The article references Retirement Savings, not how much do you have in a savings account. $60K is low as hell for a Retirement account at age 40.

that's not good...

for any person that's been working since let's say 25 years old(assuming they spent their early 20s going to some sort of learning whether it's college, vocational school, trade school what ever)

that means you've managed to save only 63k in 15 years of working.... That comes out to only 4200 a year.... or a very meagre $350 dollars a month... not including the fact that you should have gotten bonuses in that time, salary raises in that time...

Maybe it's cause I come from a financial background, but yeah, that isn't very good at all.

Perhaps this is just a sign that you aren't looking beyond people that share the same socioeconomic status or background as yourself.

Yes, the article says it is median, and average for same age range is ~$101,000. I think this is believable -- plenty of folks at the topish end likely easily have $1M+ in retirement savings (not that hard for dual income households and/or those with professional degrees), while plenty of folks surely still have zero or close to it (likely folks paid hourly and generally living paycheck to paycheck, or folks with massive student loans, etc.). Probably puts the median and average right around those numbers for the age cohort as a whole.

You are not even close to average lol.

Average is different from median.

If you were to exclude people that work for a technology company and who have been granted options each year for the past 10+ years I suspect the median savings would be negative.

I'm not all that surprised. Even worse, I bet a lot of folks in their 30s/40s saved every penny to buy a bloated house at the top of the market. Very little in cash reserves and retirement accounts.

honestly i dont know many people you save $350 a month or can. I have one group of friends that save maybe zero and earn 60k-100k per year and the other group of friends over 150k+ a year that have saved hundreds of thousands but they are single no wife/kids yet. Many that cant save roll into marriage/kids with little savings then the bills just pile up not only from kids but also the wife running up expenses sky high. Most people dont have delayed gratification so they want fancy house,car,marriage everything fast and now so they would rather just pay and have those things instead of save.

Depends on when they took the poll. Was it taken when bitcoin was at 68,925, or when it was at 23,932? Millennials love crypto.

OPs title says average but the article says median, so you wouldnt expect the very wealthy to inflate it

For those suggesting that SS will be fully funded in the future and who are saying that you've been hearing about the insolvency of SS for decades, I would say:

We've all been hearing it for decades too, but over those decades, the insolvency has consistently been projected to occur in the 2030s. In fact, all that has changed is that they have moved it up from the mid 2030s to 2032 now, despite the fact that eligibility age has increased, taxation of SS benefits has also increased, and the cap on income that can be taxed for purposes of SS funding has also increased.

I've known that this would happen since elementary school - it is an inevitable result of demographics (a huge number of boomers will continue to be added to the benefits system while the generation behind them is too small to fully support the obligations under the current benefits arrangement).

Expect increased taxation for those with other income sources, increases in the caps, and languishing benefits.

If you don't plan accordingly, and are relying on SS as anything other than a supplement, then shame on you if we hear from you in 2032 or beyond about how SS (a program intended as an income supplement and not a retirement plan) doesn't allow our seniors to cover their expenses.

You'd be shocked at how many college grads don't save up in their 401k or even have an IRA. I know plenty of people who make over 6 figures who contribute nothing to their 401k, not even for the match. I also know many people who dipped into their 401k when they were unemployed to live off of, to pay for their kid's wedding or car etc. The average American is irresponsible and needs to be bailed out, hence the student loan forgiveness talks.

$50 per week in a 401k with equal matching from the employer invested in the S&P would result in $250k for a 40 year old today.

68% of employed Americans have access to a 401k program.

I plugged in some numbers. $100/week from 22 to 40 would require a 9.7% interest rate on average not including fees to get to $250k. No idea what the S&P 500 performance is for the past 18 years. This also assumes no unemployment for 18 years.

1) Your source says person in their 40s, not 40.

2) Your source says median, not average. Big difference.

3) Your source says this is how much they have saved for retirement, which is no the same thing as savings. Net worth would be a better metric.

I just turned 34 and have a net worth of about $230,000 for whatever that's worth. Should hit a million by early 40s. I started investing at a relatively young age, and time is very much your friend when it comes to investing. Never understood people who blow every dime they earn.

Starting when? Most people don't have jobs with a 401k through most of their 20s.

On the flip side...the US median household income in 2004 was $44,389. If you were to invest 15% of that annually for 18 years at a 7-8% return, that number hits $239k-$266k. In theory the median net worth should be this or higher. But lots of folks don't save.