How Much Should the Average Earner Save for Retirement?

The savings-rate guideline, and why it isn't all-or-nothing

The commonly cited 15%-of-income guideline assumes decades of compounding and is built to get a typical earner to a comfortable retirement income without requiring an unusually high savings rate late in life. It includes your employer match, so if your employer contributes 4%, you personally need to save closer to 11% to hit the combined target.

Starting below 15% is not a failure — it's the normal starting point for most people. The number that matters most isn't your current percentage, it's whether that percentage is moving up over time, ideally with every raise, until it reaches the target range.

If 15% feels impossible right now, start with the two moves that matter most

On a modest income, the first move is always the employer match — it's an immediate, guaranteed return that no other savings decision can match, so contribute at least enough to capture 100% of it before optimizing anything else. The second move is a small, automatic increase: raising your contribution by just 1 percentage point a year, or setting your plan to auto-escalate with every raise, closes the gap to 15% gradually instead of all at once.

Even 5% to 6% today, rising steadily, beats attempting 15% immediately and abandoning the plan a few months later when the budget feels too tight. Model your own contribution levels in the 401(k) calculator to see how even a modest starting rate compounds over 20 to 30 years.

What you're actually saving toward

The other half of the equation is what your savings need to replace. The Department of Labor generally frames a workable retirement income at 70% to 90% of your pre-retirement income, once you account for a paid-off mortgage, no more commuting costs, and no more retirement contributions coming out of every paycheck.

Combine that target with the standard 4% initial withdrawal guideline: a nest egg of roughly 25 times your desired annual retirement spending can sustain that spending for a typical 30-year retirement, per the framework applied throughout our retirement calculator. Working backward from your own expected spending, rather than a generic income multiple, gives a non-high earner a savings goal that's actually sized to their real life, not an average that may not fit.

Making adjustments when you're behind

If you're behind on the savings-rate guideline, three levers move the number more than panic ever will: catch-up contributions, a longer working timeline, and a realistic look at planned spending. For 2026, workers 50 and older can add an extra $8,000 to a 401(k) beyond the standard $24,500 limit, or an extra $1,100 to an IRA beyond its $7,500 limit, per the IRS — savers aged 60 to 63 get an even larger 401(k) catch-up of $35,750 total.

Working two or three years longer than originally planned does more for a retirement projection than most people expect, since it shortens the number of years your savings must cover and gives your existing balance more time to compound. Two more levers work on the spending side rather than the savings side: relocating to a lower cost-of-living area in retirement can shrink your target nest egg without changing your savings rate at all, and building in a flexible withdrawal rate — trimming spending slightly in years the market is down rather than withdrawing a fixed amount regardless of returns — makes a smaller balance stretch further than the standard fixed-percentage rule assumes. See our retirement readiness guide for a full walkthrough of closing a savings gap in your final working years.

Where non-high earners can find real, affordable advice

A traditional advisor charging roughly 1% of assets under management can be a poor fit when your balance is still small, since the flat percentage eats disproportionately into a modest account. Look instead for a fee-only fiduciary who bills a flat project fee or hourly rate rather than a percentage of assets — the NAPFA directory lists advisors who work this way — or start with your employer's own financial wellness benefit, which many workplace retirement plans now include at no extra cost.

Nonprofit credit and financial counseling organizations affiliated with the National Foundation for Credit Counseling offer low-cost or free general financial guidance, and a growing number of low-cost robo-advisors and target-date funds handle basic asset allocation automatically for a small percentage fee, without requiring a minimum balance most beginning savers can't meet.

Be cautious with two sources that look free but aren't neutral: a general-purpose AI chatbot can misstate contribution limits or tax rules with total confidence, and an advisor or rep who steers you toward a specific commission-paying product before understanding your full situation is optimizing for their payout, not your outcome — a fee-only fiduciary has no such conflict built into how they get paid.

The bottom line

Fifteen percent of income, including your match, is a solid long-run target for a typical earner — but the realistic starting point for most people is lower, rising gradually as income grows and the budget allows. Capture the full employer match first, automate small annual increases, and use catch-up contributions and a slightly longer timeline if you start late. None of that requires a percentage-fee advisor to execute; a fee-only fiduciary, an employer benefit, or even a well-chosen target-date fund can get most non-high earners most of the way there.

Frequently asked questions