{"id":772253,"date":"2026-09-16T07:10:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T07:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/772253\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T07:10:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T07:10:14","slug":"new-census-data-details-what-a-typical-retirees-income-looks-like-and-where-it-comes-from","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/772253\/","title":{"rendered":"New Census Data Details What a Typical Retiree\u2019s Income Looks Like and Where It Comes From"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"About<\/a> About 30% of households headed by someone 65 or older brought in $100,000 or more in 2025, up from 28% the year before, according to the Census Bureau.
Credit: Iuliia Zavalishina \/ Getty Images Key Takeaways <\/p>\n

The median income for households headed by someone 65 or older rose 3.1% in 2025, in line with working-age households. <\/p>\n

Older adults increasingly rely on income sources beyond Social Security, such as jobs and retirement accounts, to make ends meet. <\/p>\n

The poverty rate among older Americans remained unchanged, even as it declined for all other age groups. <\/p>\n

Older households kept pace with workers last year\u2014until you look at the older adults with the least. <\/p>\n

Real median income<\/a> for households headed by someone 65 or older rose 3.1% to $59,680 in 2025, the Census Bureau said Tuesday. That’s roughly in step with working-age households, whose median income rose 2.7% to $101,900. The median income for all households reached $87,460, up 2.6%\u2014the highest in Census records dating to 1967. <\/p>\n

But poverty among older Americans didn’t budge, even as it fell for all other age groups. Claire Casey, AARP’s president, said in a statement that the release confirms that “rising prices, an eroding social safety net, and diminishing access to quality jobs are creating extreme precarity for older adults.” <\/p>\n

Why This Matters to You <\/p>\n

Census data shows where most Americans’ retirement income comes from: Social Security, a pension, IRAs and similar accounts, and a paycheck for a growing number of seniors<\/a>. Knowing how those pieces fit together can help you plan for retirement. <\/p>\n

Gains for older people are notable for where they didn’t come from. Social Security’s 2.5% cost-of-living adjustment<\/a> for 2025 matched the inflation measure the Census Bureau uses, so those benefits delivered no real gain. <\/p>\n

The figures don’t say which income sources drove the rise. But they do show how older adults are turning more to other income sources to make ends meet<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

Households headed by someone 65 to 74 had a median income of $68,800 last year. For those 75 and older, it was $50,880. <\/p>\n

Among ages 65 to 74, the median Social Security benefit was $20,980. The 33% with jobs earned a median $45,960, more than twice the median benefit. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

At ages 75 and older, the mix shifts much more toward Social Security. Only 10% had earnings from work, while 93% drew Social Security, with a median benefit of $21,690. <\/p>\n

Across everyone 65 or older, pensions are still a bigger income source than 401(k)s: 29% had pension income, while only 19% drew on a 401(k)<\/a>, IRA<\/a>, or similar account. Two-thirds had interest income, but the typical amount was only about $1,800. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, about 30% of households headed by someone 65 or older had incomes of $100,000 or more in 2025, up from 28% in 2024, adjusted for inflation. Among households headed by someone under 65, it was 51%. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

At the other end of the income scale, the official poverty rate for people 65 or older<\/a> held at 9.8% in 2025, even as the rate for all households fell to 10.2%. <\/p>\n

The government’s Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM), which accounts for out-of-pocket medical expenses and certain benefits the official measure excludes, was bleaker for seniors. Under this measure, the senior poverty rate was 15.4%, about the same as 2024 but still the highest level since 2013. <\/p>\n

Medical costs alone added 3.8 percentage points to the supplemental rate, pushing about 2.5 million people 65 or older below the poverty line. <\/p>\n

Private health coverage among older adults also fell 2.8 percentage points last year, while enrollment in both Medicare and Medicaid<\/a> increased. <\/p>\n

Social Security remains a bulwark against poverty for older Americans. Tuesday’s data shows the program kept 29 million people above the supplemental poverty line in 2025, more than 70% of them age 65 or older. Without Social Security, the older adult poverty rate would have been 32 percentage points higher. <\/p>\n

Read the original article on Investopedia<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"About 30% of households headed by someone 65 or older brought in $100,000 or more in 2025, up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":772254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[84,59567,254798,4176,245308,58092,863,128668,4174,4175,59883,89429,30384,13329,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-772253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-census-bureau","tag-census-records","tag-finance","tag-income-sources","tag-median-income","tag-older-adults","tag-older-americans","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-poverty-rate","tag-retirement-accounts","tag-retirement-income","tag-social-security","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=772253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/772254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=772253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=772253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}