{"id":586587,"date":"2026-04-05T07:22:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T07:22:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/586587\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T07:22:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T07:22:21","slug":"retirement-magic-number-jumps-as-americans-grow-anxious-about-their-financial-futures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/586587\/","title":{"rendered":"Retirement &#8216;magic number&#8217; jumps as Americans grow anxious about their financial futures"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/401k-pension-stock-market.jpeg\" alt=\"\" data-v-7d0efd03=\"\"\/> article <\/p>\n<p data-v-7d0efd03=\"\">Americans&#8217; &#8220;magic number&#8221; for retirement rose to $1.46 million. (Angela Weiss\/AFP for Getty Images)  <\/p>\n<p data-v-f1afc186=\"\">The &#8220;magic number&#8221; that Americans believe they need to have\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxbusiness.com\/category\/retire\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">saved for retirement<\/a> jumped from a year ago as some express anxiety about their retirement savings.<\/p>\n<p data-v-f1afc186=\"\">Northwestern Mutual released a study on Wednesday which found that the amount of retirement\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxbusiness.com\/category\/savings\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">savings<\/a> Americans think they need to retire comfortably rose to $1.46 million.<\/p>\n<p data-v-f1afc186=\"\">That figure is an increase of $200,000 from last year&#8217;s edition of the report and is in line with the estimated magic number from 2024, the firm noted.<\/p>\n<p data-v-f1afc186=\"\">&#8220;The new &#8216;magic number&#8217; reflects a convergence of factors \u2014 from persistent inflation and longer life expectancies to uncertainty about the future of Social Security,&#8221; said John Roberts, chief field officer at Northwestern Mutual.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-v-f1afc186=\"\">For Americans with a relatively high net worth, defined as having $1 million or more in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxbusiness.com\/category\/fox-news-investment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">investable assets<\/a>, the magic number is even higher at $2.67 million, on average.<\/p>\n<p data-v-f1afc186=\"\">&#8220;Retirement is increasingly complex, and Americans are responding by setting higher expectations for what they&#8217;ll need. What matters now is pairing those expectations with a thoughtful, comprehensive financial plan that will enable them to reach their unique goals,&#8221; Roberts said.<\/p>\n<p data-v-f1afc186=\"\">The report found that 46% of Americans say they don&#8217;t expect they will be financially prepared for retirement, and 48% said it&#8217;s somewhat or very likely they will outlive their savings. It also found that just 23% of Americans with retirement savings said they have only one year or less of their current income set aside.<\/p>\n<p data-v-f1afc186=\"\">The report notes that while there isn&#8217;t a universal retirement number for all Americans, Northwestern Mutual recommends that people plan to replace about 80% of their pre-retirement income.<\/p>\n<p data-v-f1afc186=\"\">It also detailed several other\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxbusiness.com\/category\/personal-finance\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">retirement rules of thumb<\/a> for Americans to consider as they think about how much they should save for retirement.<\/p>\n<p data-v-f1afc186=\"\">The so-called &#8220;25x rule&#8221; suggests that a person should save about 25 times their expected annual savings. Using the $1.46 million &#8220;magic number&#8221; from the study, that would be sufficient to generate about $58,000 in annual retirement income, the report said.<\/p>\n<p data-v-f1afc186=\"\">Another rule of thumb is the $1,000-a-month rule, which states that for every $1,000 of desired monthly retirement spending, there should be $300,000 in savings. For example, with $1.46 million in retirement savings, it would yield about $4,800 in retirement income per month.<\/p>\n<p data-v-f1afc186=\"\">&#8220;These rules of thumb can certainly give Americans a ballpark estimate for their own\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxbusiness.com\/category\/wealth-management\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">wealth management<\/a> goals. But they don&#8217;t factor in the big risks to retirement \u2013 like increasing healthcare costs or a long-term care event,&#8221; Roberts said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-v-f1afc186=\"\">&#8220;They also don&#8217;t consider any unique estate planning goals that Americans hope to provide to the next generation,&#8221; he added, noting that developing a financial plan with an advisor can be beneficial.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-v-f1afc186=\"\">LINK: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxbusiness.com\/economy\/retirement-magic-number-jumps-americans-grow-anxious-about-financial-futures\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Get updates and more at foxbusiness.com.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox35orlando.com\/tag\/business\/personal-finance\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-f1afc186=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Personal Finance<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox35orlando.com\/tag\/money\/us-economy\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-f1afc186=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Economy<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox35orlando.com\/tag\/lifestyle\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-f1afc186=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lifestyle<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"article Americans&#8217; &#8220;magic number&#8221; for retirement rose to $1.46 million. (Angela Weiss\/AFP for Getty Images) The &#8220;magic number&#8221;&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":586588,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[64,63,99,186,1625,187,44,184,185,5710],"class_list":{"0":"post-586587","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-finance","12":"tag-lifestyle","13":"tag-money","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-personal-finance","16":"tag-personalfinance","17":"tag-us-economy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}