How much should I have saved by age?

Common planning multiples are about 1× salary by 30, 3× by 40, 6× by 50, and 8× by 60, saved for retirement. Survey medians are much lower than those targets. Use them as context, then check your own spending and date.

Arc · Published September 18, 2026 · Updated September 18, 2026

Two different questions

“What do similar households have?” is a survey question. The Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances answers it with medians and percentiles. “What should I have?” is a planning question. Salary multiples are one firm’s answer to the second question. They are not the same table.

A commonly cited planning ladder. Not SCF medians.
Age	Retirement savings as a multiple of income
30	1×
40	3×
50	6×
60	8×
67	10×

Why medians sit below the ladder

The SCF median household does not save at the rate those multiples assume. A median is also pulled by households with little or no retirement account. Being above the median is not the same as being on track for your spending.

Example

Income $120,000 at age 40. A 3× checkpoint is $360,000 of retirement savings. If spending in retirement will be $70,000 and you use a 4% rate, the eventual portfolio target is $1.75 million. The age checkpoint does not replace that target. It only tells you whether the current balance is in a familiar range.

Common questions

Should I use net worth or retirement accounts?

Salary multiples usually mean retirement savings. Net worth includes the house and the mortgage. Both are useful. They answer different questions. Arc publishes them on separate benchmark pages.

Sources

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Survey of Consumer Finances, 2022. Dollar figures on Arc benchmark pages are inflated to July 2026 dollars with BLS CPI-U.
Fidelity Viewpoints has published similar salary multiples as planning checkpoints, not as survey results. Multiples differ by firm. They assume you keep saving and retire around traditional ages.