Only 1 in 22 Families in Their 50s Hits the 6x Retirement Rule
The Federal Reserve’s newest Survey of Consumer Finances, released in October 2026, shows the typical family in its 50s with a retirement account holds about one year of income there. Our count finds only about 1 in 22 families aged 50 to 59 has retirement accounts worth 6 times income, the step the usual rule sets by 50.
The short answer. Balances grew in the Fed’s 2025 survey, and in our count a larger share of families reached the rule than in 2022, but net worth fell for families under 35. Even so, most families fall short of the 1x to 10x ladder Fidelity publishes at every age we checked, from 30 to 74, even counting the family home. Families in their 50s without a traditional pension reach the 6x step just as rarely, so the low share is not a quirk of pension holders.
Retirement savings in three numbers
On this page
- What this means for a typical family
- How much families have saved at each age
- What the 1x to 10x rule says
- Find your age: who has reached the rule
- What changed since the 2022 survey
- Pensions, Social Security, couples and the home
- Who has no retirement account at all
- What to watch next
- Frequently asked questions
What this means for a typical family
If your family is below the rule of thumb, it is in the large majority. The rule follows one steady saver, so it works as a yardstick for progress and cannot say whether a particular family can retire.
In Fidelity’s own assumptions, that saver puts away 15 percent of income every year from age 25, employer match included, and retires at 67. The survey does not show why families fall short. In our count, no more than about 1 in 8 families in any age band we checked has reached its step.
- By 30: 1 year of income In their 30s, the typical family with an account has about 4 months of income saved, and 12.5 percent of families have reached 1 year.
- By 40: 3 years of income In their 40s, the typical saver family has about 8 months of income, and 6.6 percent of families have reached 3 years.
- By 50: 6 years of income In their 50s, the typical saver family has about 1 year of income, and 4.5 percent of families have reached 6 years.
- By 60: 8 years of income From 60 to 66, the typical saver family has about 1 year and 9 months of income, and 5.3 percent of families have reached 8 years.
- By 67: 10 years of income From 67 to 74, the typical saver family has about 2 and a half years of its current income, and 5.8 percent have reached 10 years.
How much families have saved for retirement at each age
Most families with a retirement account have less than a year of pay in it before 50, and close to half of all families have no such account at all.
Among savers, the typical balance runs from $21,000 for the youngest families to $257,000 at 65 and older, in the Federal Reserve’s chart data for the 2025 survey. These are medians, the family in the middle of the line, in 2025 dollars. The average runs far higher, because a small group of large accounts pulls it up.
Show the data
| Category | Value |
|---|---|
| Under 35 | $21K |
| 35 to 44 | $61K |
| 45 to 54 | $133K |
| 55 to 64 | $239K |
| 65 to 74 | $257K |
| 75 or older | $257K |
The survey counts families, and the age is that of the family’s head. The Fed’s summary report counts IRAs, Keogh accounts and workplace accounts such as 401(k), 403(b) and thrift savings plans. Social Security and traditional pensions that pay a fixed monthly check are left out by design.
| Age of family head | Families with a retirement account | Median balance, families with one | Mean balance, families with one | Median family income, all families |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under 35 | 48.8% | $21,000 | $48,400 | $67,800 |
| 35 to 44 | 59.6% | $61,000 | $182,400 | $97,600 |
| 45 to 54 | 63.0% | $133,000 | $415,800 | $108,900 |
| 55 to 64 | 63.1% | $239,000 | $670,200 | $92,400 |
| 65 to 74 | 49.0% | $257,000 | $767,500 | $69,800 |
| 75 or older | 44.6% | $257,000 | $798,700 | $66,800 |
At 55 to 64 the mean is about 2.8 times the median. Across all ages, 54.9 percent of families held a retirement account in 2025, per the Fed’s report. Counting those without one as zero, the middle family aged 55 to 64 holds $45,000 in our count from the Fed’s family data, against $239,000 among savers.
Source: the Fed’s median, mean and ownership chart files and its report, released October 9, 2026. The $45,000 is our count.
What the 1x to 10x rule says
The rule asks for one year of pay saved by 30, climbing to ten years by 67. It pictures someone who saved steadily from age 25, and even the firm behind it calls the steps aspirational.
In the words of Fidelity’s guide, dated September 25, 2026: “Aim to save at least 1x your salary by 30, 3x by 40, 6x by 50, 8x by 60, and 10x by 67.” Fidelity itself says “These milestones are aspirational.”
Fidelity assumes more than half of savings is invested in stocks on average over a lifetime and that the saver keeps the same lifestyle in retirement. It plans for savings to provide about 45 percent of pre-retirement income. Its footnote says that target was built with Social Security benefit calculators and “assumes no pension income.” Retiring at 65 raises the goal to 12x, and waiting until 70 lowers it to 8x.
T. Rowe Price’s gentler benchmarks start at half a year of income at 30.
| Age | Fidelity | T. Rowe Price |
|---|---|---|
| 30 | 1x | 0.5x |
| 40 | 3x | 1.5x to 2.5x |
| 50 | 6x | 3.5x to 5.5x |
| 60 | 8x | 6x to 10.5x |
| Retirement | 10x at 67 | 7.5x to 13x at 65 |
The gentler ladder does not change the picture much. Only 14.2 percent of families in their 50s have even 3 years of income in retirement accounts, so no more than that can reach T. Rowe Price’s 3.5x at 50.
Source: Fidelity and T. Rowe Price guides; the 14.2 percent is our count.
Find your age: how many families have reached the rule
Most families in every age band we checked have less in retirement accounts than the rule names. In their 50s, about 1 in 22 has reached it, so a family below the line has a great deal of company.
Show the data
| Part | Value | Squares |
|---|---|---|
| Accounts worth 6x income or more | 4.5% | 4 |
| An account worth less than 6x | 58.8% | 59 |
| No retirement account | 36.7% | 37 |
The Fed does not publish this count, so we made it from the Fed’s public family-level file, with the Fed’s weights. Each family’s retirement accounts are compared with its own yearly income and with the step its age has already passed. A family aged 57 is tested against 6x, never 8x.
| Age of family head | Typical balance, families with an account | Typical savings in years of income, families with an account | The rule’s step | Families at the step or above |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 to 39 | $44,000 | 0.37 (about 4 months) | 1x | 12.5% |
| 40 to 49 | $100,000 | 0.68 (about 8 months) | 3x | 6.6% |
| 50 to 59 | $140,000 | 1.06 (about 1 year) | 6x | 4.5% |
| 60 to 66 | $251,000 | 1.75 (about 1 year and 9 months) | 8x | 5.3% |
| 67 to 74 | $272,000 | 2.47 (about 2 and a half years) | 10x | 5.8% |
The dollar balance and the years of income are separate medians of the families in each band with an account, so they need not describe the same family. Each band rests on roughly 590 to 830 interviewed families, so the shares carry sampling error we did not compute. The Fed fills in missing answers five times over, and the 50s share ranges from 4.4 to 4.6 percent across those copies. That range is not a measure of sampling error.
Source: StockTitan calculation from the Fed’s public summary file for the 2025 survey, on its Survey of Consumer Finances page; steps from Fidelity.
Take a family in its 50s earning $100,000 a year, close to the middle income for that age. The rule’s 6x step would mean $600,000 in retirement accounts. A family at the typical saver’s level of about one year of income would hold roughly $106,000. More than a third of families that age hold nothing at all in these accounts.
Show the data
| Category | Value |
|---|---|
| 30 to 39, 1x | 12.5% |
| 40 to 49, 3x | 6.6% |
| 50 to 59, 6x | 4.5% |
| 60 to 66, 8x | 5.3% |
| 67 to 74, 10x | 5.8% |
What changed since the 2022 survey
In our count, the share reaching the rule rose in every age band we checked. Younger families showed mixed results. Net worth fell for families under 35, and a larger share of families in their 30s had no retirement account.
Typical balances among savers are at their highest since the Fed’s series began in 1989 for every age group except 35 to 44, which is still below its 2019 peak.
Show the data
| Category | Under 35 | 35 to 44 | 45 to 54 | 55 to 64 | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1989 | $10.1K | $25.2K | $42.9K | $60.6K | |
| 1992 | $10.2K | $20.6K | $63.5K | $68.0K | |
| 1995 | $12.7K | $30.9K | $59.3K | $67.8K | |
| 1998 | $14.0K | $39.9K | $69.8K | $93.8K | |
| 2001 | $12.8K | $52.4K | $87.9K | $100.8K | |
| 2004 | $18.9K | $48.1K | $95.4K | $142.7K | |
| 2007 | $15.0K | $57.9K | $98.7K | $156.6K | |
| 2010 | $15.8K | $46.3K | $89.7K | $149.5K | |
| 2013 | $16.7K | $59.5K | $121.2K | $144.9K | |
| 2016 | $16.2K | $49.9K | $110.7K | $162.0K | |
| 2019 | $16.5K | $76.1K | $126.9K | $170.0K | 35 to 44 median peaks at $76,100 |
| 2022 | $20.7K | $49.2K | $125.9K | $202.5K | |
| 2025 | $21.0K | $61.0K | $133.0K | $239.0K | Newest survey, released October 2026 |
Our same count on the Fed’s 2022 public file puts the 50s share at 3.1 percent then, against 4.5 percent in 2025.
A larger share of families in their 30s reached the 1x step, but a larger share also had no retirement account at all. Median net worth for families under 35 fell 23 percent, to $32,800 in the Fed’s chart data, though it is still above every survey before 2022.
| Age of family head | At the step or above, 2022 | At the step or above, 2025 | No retirement account, 2022 | No retirement account, 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 to 39 | 9.0% | 12.5% | 39.4% | 46.3% |
| 40 to 49 | 2.9% | 6.6% | 39.0% | 37.0% |
| 50 to 59 | 3.1% | 4.5% | 39.3% | 36.7% |
| 60 to 66 | 4.4% | 5.3% | 44.8% | 39.6% |
| 67 to 74 | 4.1% | 5.8% | 49.6% | 51.6% |
Each survey interviews new families. These figures compare one group with another, never the same people getting older. Small changes may reflect sampling variation, and we did not test whether the differences between surveys are statistically significant.
Source: StockTitan calculation from the Fed’s public summary files for the 2022 and 2025 surveys; net worth and balances from the Fed’s chart data by age.
What pensions, Social Security, couples and the home change
Pensions and Social Security can support retirement alongside savings, so account balances alone cannot tell whether a family can retire. Counting everything families own minus their debts narrows the gap, though about 7 in 10 families in their 50s still fall below six times income.
Pensions come first. A traditional pension can stand in for a large balance, and Fidelity’s ladder already assumes there is none. So we reran the count without the families that have one, and the 50s share stayed at 4.5 percent. That shows the low share is not driven by pension holders keeping smaller accounts. It does not measure how far a pension makes up for a small balance in the families that have one.
Social Security is already built in. The rule only asks savings to cover about 45 percent of pre-retirement income. For families already drawing benefits, though, Social Security sits inside the income we divide by, which makes their multiple look smaller.
Couples are counted together. The survey adds a couple’s savings and income. For two earners facing the same age milestone, that gives a useful household comparison, though it cannot show whether each partner reaches the step alone.
The broadest comparison is net worth, everything a family owns minus everything it owes. On that measure, 30.4 percent of families in their 50s reach 6 times income, and the figure does not isolate the home. A house is also somewhere to live, so turning it into retirement income means selling it or borrowing against it.
About 28 percent of families in their 50s have a traditional pension from a current job or due from a past job.
| Age of family head | Step | Retirement accounts at the step | Retirement accounts at half the step | Every financial asset at the step | Net worth at the step |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 to 39 | 1x | 12.5% | 21.8% | 22.0% | 48.1% |
| 40 to 49 | 3x | 6.6% | 18.7% | 14.5% | 38.3% |
| 50 to 59 | 6x | 4.5% | 14.2% | 11.6% | 30.4% |
| 60 to 66 | 8x | 5.3% | 14.3% | 10.5% | 33.4% |
| 67 to 74 | 10x | 5.8% | 16.1% | 14.5% | 35.4% |
The oldest band needs a caution. Many families aged 67 to 74 are retired, and their income includes Social Security and pensions. Some have started drawing on their accounts, so their figures say little about where they stood when they stopped working.
Source: StockTitan calculation from the Fed’s public summary file for the 2025 survey, on its Survey of Consumer Finances page.
Who has no retirement account at all
Retirement accounts are mostly a middle- and upper-income habit. Most lower-income families have none at all.
In the bottom fifth of families by usual income, 13.7 percent hold an account, against 92.9 percent of the top tenth, according to the Fed’s ownership data by income.
A saver family in the bottom fifth has a median of $17,000, and one in the top tenth has $893,000, per the Fed’s medians by income.
Source: the Fed’s chart data on ownership and medians by income.
What to watch next
The next Survey of Consumer Finances covers 2028, and the same count can be run on it.
The signs worth watching are whether more young families open an account and whether the share at their step keeps rising. StockTitan’s retirement calculator and Coast FIRE calculator work from whatever balance, age and growth rate you enter.
How we counted
We used the Fed’s public summary file for the 2025 survey, from its Survey of Consumer Finances page. We ran the same count on the 2022 file for the comparison with that survey. Each file holds every interviewed family five times, once for each way the Fed fills in missing answers, and we used all five with the Fed’s weights. As a check, our weighted medians reproduce the Fed’s chart data by age exactly.
Age is the age of the family’s head. Income is the family’s total pre-tax income for the year before the interview, stated in 2025 dollars, and families reporting no income, about 0.2 percent, are left out. Retirement accounts follow the Fed’s definition. Every financial asset adds holdings such as bank accounts, certificates of deposit, stocks, funds and bonds. Net worth is everything a family owns, including homes, vehicles and businesses, minus everything it owes.
Each family is compared with the last Fidelity milestone its head has reached. That is 1x from 30 to 39, 3x from 40 to 49, 6x from 50 to 59, 8x from 60 to 66 and 10x from 67 to 74. Families without an account count as zero, and every share is among families with income above zero.
A traditional pension means the survey records a defined benefit plan on a current job, or one due from a past job, for the head or a partner. The rule is written for one person’s salary while the survey measures a whole family, so the shares approximate the rule and never test it exactly.
Frequently asked questions
What is the average retirement savings by age?
In the Fed’s 2025 survey, the median balance among families with a retirement account is $21,000 under 35 and $61,000 at 35 to 44. It is $133,000 at 45 to 54, $239,000 at 55 to 64 and $257,000 at 65 and over. The mean is much higher, $670,200 at 55 to 64, because a few large accounts pull it up. Both figures are in 2025 dollars.
How much should I have saved for retirement by 40?
Fidelity’s guideline says 3 times your salary by 40, and T. Rowe Price’s benchmark says 1.5 to 2.5 times. In our count from the Fed’s public family data for the 2025 survey, the middle family aged 40 to 49 with an account held about 8 months of income. Only 6.6 percent of families that age had reached 3 years. Your own figure depends on when you plan to retire and how you expect to live, which the rules of thumb cannot know.
Do the survey figures count a married couple together?
Yes. The Survey of Consumer Finances measures families, so a couple’s accounts and incomes are added together. That makes the comparison with a one-salary rule a reasonable household approximation, most useful for two earners facing the same milestone, though it cannot show each partner’s own result.
What share of American families have no retirement account?
About 45 percent of families had no retirement account in 2025, since 54.9 percent held one. More than half of families under 35 and over 65 have none, and so do most lower-income families. Our counts of families meeting the rule include them as holding zero.
Do retirement savings figures include pensions and Social Security?
No. The Fed’s retirement accounts are IRAs, Keogh accounts and workplace accounts such as 401(k) and 403(b) plans. Its report says Social Security and traditional pensions are left out, because their future payments cannot easily be turned into a value today.
Which StockTitan tools help with retirement numbers?
StockTitan’s retirement calculator, FIRE calculator and Coast FIRE calculator take your own balance, savings and growth assumptions and show the arithmetic. The compound interest calculator shows how a balance grows at a rate you choose, and our explainer on compound annual growth rates covers the math behind it. For the latest Social Security raise, see our report on the 2027 increase.
Sources
- StockTitan, Retirement Calculator
- StockTitan, Coast FIRE Calculator
- StockTitan, FIRE Calculator
- StockTitan, Compound Interest Calculator
- Federal Reserve Board, release of the 2025 Survey of Consumer Finances, October 9, 2026
- Federal Reserve, Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2022 to 2025
- Federal Reserve, Survey of Consumer Finances data and summary extract
- Federal Reserve, 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances data and summary extract
- Federal Reserve, SCF chart data, medians by age
- Federal Reserve, SCF chart data, means by age
- Federal Reserve, SCF chart data, ownership by age
- Federal Reserve, SCF chart data, ownership by income
- Federal Reserve, SCF chart data, medians by income
- Fidelity, How much do I need to retire?
- T. Rowe Price, savings benchmarks by age
The information provided in this article is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial advice, investment recommendation, or an endorsement of any particular investment strategy. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Investors should conduct their own research and consult with a qualified financial advisor before making investment decisions.