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Those are the current typical incomes for senior captains in the US, after the recent massive increases in salaries - but impossible to save >$6M while raising 2 kids and being divorced, unless major market success was involved. Why would he get a couple million in a lump sum at retirement??
I think you guys are way off on those top airline pilot salaries. It was $250k back in the late 80's when my Ex started working at United as a mechanic. The mechanics were making over $100k (with their bit of overtime here and there). I'd say double those amounts (at least).
Well I guess we have "zero" retirement savings, despite being retired for 10 years and actually having a slightly higher annual income now than we did while working. That's a really silly chart if it doesn't count assets other than those in tax-deferred accounts. Our pensions alone will amount to more than $1.5 mil, assuming we live to our mid-80s. Add SS, rental income, taxable stock accounts, money market account, and equity in real estate other than our home and we're in fine shape, but to them we are destitute I guess because we have no tax-deferred savings. I'm crying all the way to the bank.
Rental income. You're tougher than me! We did get about $1M pretax out of my spouse's house after we evicted the hoarders and sold the place. Boy, were they mad when I sent them the Zillow page and they saw how beautifully remodeled "their" house was now...
So they wrote an article for 0.1% of retirees in America?
Someone mentioned they were frugal so were able to save that much, and judging from their plans for retirement, were continuing their moderate lifestyles. Seems to me that many of them were traveling the globe frequently, which is an expensive lifestyle. Some were still working..they are likely executives and entrepreneurs. You won't see them in hard hats working on the side of the highway.
I think you guys are way off on those top airline pilot salaries. It was $250k back in the late 80's when my Ex started working at United as a mechanic. The mechanics were making over $100k (with their bit of overtime here and there). I'd say double those amounts (at least).
Absolutely not off. My late great boyfriend was a commercial pilot (although not a US citizen, and not for a US airline). Granted, he died in 2012, but at that time, the best-paying airline in Europe paid very experienced captains who flew transAtlantic routes around 130k Euro per year (sorry, corrected that; wrote $130k by mistake; 1 Euro was about $1.3 at that time, so around $170k), and the US pilots who did the same were earning about 50%-60% more.
PS- here, I just looked it up. A senior 777 captain at United has a minimum guaranteed annual salary of about $310k for 73 hours of flying per month. But if you figure that it takes about 8 hours for a transAtlantic flight, and you fly 2 or 3 times per week, you can't really fly much more than 80 hours per month. Anyway, you can take this question to the Aviation forum, and come back to tell us what they say; I'm sure some senior US commercial pilot who still flies will chime in :-)
I find it hard to believe 49.5% have saved zero for retirement. If so, yikes!
I don't. I know a lot of people who have no savings, yet they survive.
I was unable to save for most of my life, but I do have a pension. It took me years after my divorce to get out of the debt from being married and then from single motherhood. I still have a mortgage, but I am saving and investing NOW in retirement.
Note, they are only counting assets in tax-deferred accounts. It does not include bank deposits, taxable brokerage accounts, rental properties, etc. Then there are people with pensions who may have never felt the need to save much in their 401k/403b/etc.
I agree that this article ignores other sources of wealth, & income, that impacts what your retirement will look like.
The article also ignores debt, which many 60+'er still have (we're debt free).
They have no way to quantify the rest of American's retirement wealth, or debt, so they use only IRS-traceable $'s...401K+IRA.
Our IRS traceable retirement savings = $2.5M now, but we have not hit retirement age yet of 65...I've got a few more yrs.
At some point, we'll sell our $1.25M home (no mortgage), & downsize to $500k place. We'll & move the excess $750k, into investments.
I'm semi-retired, but still own a corp that earns six-figures that I could sell, or continue to earn from. I'd conservatively value that at $1.25M.
So, we have $2M in illiquid retirement $'s, that this article ignores...which adds 44% more to our retirement, & pushes the total to $4.5M.
If we only had the $2.5M in 401k/IRA to live off of (+ SS), we'd travel less than we do now, & I wouldn't be looking at $300k boats.
We've downsized from a 6k sq. ft. home in GA to a 3k sq ft home in FLA, & I sold the 3rd car (exotic), so we've reduced our burn rate a lot. Eliminating GA's 6% State income tax alone, was a significant savings.
At this point, we're still building wealth. We'll never spend it all so, we've set up 2 trusts & a will, to pass on the excess.
We never made a lot of earned income, but we lived way beneath our means, invested well, & it just accumulated.
I find it fascinating that the bulk of comments in this thread are not about the lifestyle enjoyed by the retirees in the article but rather by the apparent limitations of the methodology by focusing on tax advantaged accounts and ignoring orther sources of income.
I find it fascinating that the bulk of comments in this thread are not about the lifestyle enjoyed by the retirees in the article but rather by the apparent limitations of the methodology by focusing on tax advantaged accounts and ignoring orther sources of income.
For many retirees, the mantra is to drawdown their portfolio by 4% every year. If the same retiree is paying anywhere from 12% to 37% taxes that could have a serious impact on their projected 4% annual drawdown.
I find it fascinating that the bulk of comments in this thread are not about the lifestyle enjoyed by the retirees in the article but rather by the apparent limitations of the methodology by focusing on tax advantaged accounts and ignoring orther sources of income.
^^^Absolutely... But, this is the fate of all financial threads. I did think that the article's reference to EBRI survey (without link even going to a specific survey) was a case of poor reporting on the part of the authors. But, the undue focus of the forum posts focus on EBRI (and I am not sure where exactly the chart of retirement savings came from) rather than 85% of the article is, unfortunately, par for the course.
My own reading/learning was that the people stay consistent in their lifestyle to how they led their lives. Like Wile E. Coyote astutely characterized "Leopards don't change their spots." It's also worth noting that while 5M is a comfortable retirement savings level but it's not high enough to cause a bout of affluenza among the retirees.
So they wrote an article for 0.1% of retirees in America?
Someone mentioned they were frugal so were able to save that much, and judging from their plans for retirement, were continuing their moderate lifestyles. Seems to me that many of them were traveling the globe frequently, which is an expensive lifestyle. Some were still working..they are likely executives and entrepreneurs. You won't see them in hard hats working on the side of the highway.
It is possible to travel very inexpensively, ie, the cheapest plane tickets are like 20% of the price of the most expensive ones, and it is possible to find very cheap AirBnB accommodations, or (if you are adventurous like me :-) stay for almost nothing at hostel dorms. You can spend a month in Paris for $100k or for $2k (which comes to net $0 after tax if you also sublet your home for $2.5k while you are away); it's the same city of Paris in either case. Travel, in and of itself, is not a luxury. And working after 65, in any profession or occupation, surely isn't a luxury either. Traveling or working after 65 ARE moderate lifestyles, ie, the folks profiled by the WSJ article DO live moderate lifestyles.
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among the retirees.
