In the US, that is one of the scariest numbers that I know of among all financial numbers. According to the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, the median (the midpoint among all Americans) in retirement savings is $1,100. Essentially half of US citizens have no savings for retirement at all.
That is just shocking. More and more, with the loss of corporate pensions and our ‘gig’ economy, people have no savings for retirement. Imagine 20, 30, 40 years from now when millions of seniors are trying to squeak by on Social Security.
People need to put 15% of the income into a retirement account every year. That means if someone makes $30,000, they should sock away $4,500 a year. A person doing that for one year would exceed the median retirement savings in the US by a factor of four.
If you’re in that below median number, I’m going to get on my hands and knees and beg you to start putting away funds for retirement. If you know someone in that group, whether it’s a friend, or child, or person you meet on the bus, tell them to call me and I’ll personally beg them to save.
No retirement savings is just going to lead to decades of a hand to mouth existence for millions of Americans.