Can you retire comfortably on Social Security alone? We asked seniors.

Is it imaginable to unrecorded comfortably successful status connected Social Security income alone?

Yes and no.

Alden and Dena Swartz gully astir $4,000 a period from Social Security, the authorities programme designed to enactment Americans successful retirement. And they are struggling.

Gail Randle and her partner, Mike DellaVolpe, cod lone $2,400 a period successful Social Security benefits: Not rather $30,000 a year. And they are doing each right.

“We are frugal people,” said Randle, 73. “Almost everything successful our location is recycled. Used, you know? Thrifted. But it looks nice. Everything works.”

Social Security was ne'er intended to money the afloat outgo of retirement. On average, the payment covers astir 40% of a worker's preretirement earnings. And that fig could drop: Social Security volition look a shortfall by 2035, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Most Americans deliberation you request astatine slightest $1 cardinal successful the bank, connected apical of Social Security, to unrecorded a comfy retirement. Investment firms and quality headlines reward that thinking: Plan to prevention 10 times your yearly income earlier you retire, communal contented suggests, if you privation to support the manner you person now.

But here’s the problem: Most Americans don’t prevention astir that much. In the 65-to-74 property group, the emblematic household with a status relationship has astir $200,000 saved, according to the national Survey of Consumer Finances. Only astir fractional of those households person status accounts astatine all.

And here’s the question: How are those radical doing?

Just fine, says Andrew Biggs, a elder chap astatine the American Enterprise Institute deliberation tank. He penned an effort that went viral, arguing that you tin discontinue with a batch little than $1 cardinal successful the bank: $50,000 to $100,000 successful savings should bash it, helium said.

As evidence, Biggs points to different national report, the Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking. That survey asked retirement-age Americans, 65 to 74, however good they were managing financially. Roughly 85% said they were doing OK.

After they retire, “people walk dramatically less,” Biggs said. “This benignant of rat contention you get erstwhile you’re working, a batch of that drops disconnected successful retirement.”

To trial that theory, USA TODAY reached retired to retirees crossed the state who are surviving mostly connected Social Security and asked however they were doing. We got assistance from the r/retirement assemblage connected Reddit, whose 83,000 members speech astir this worldly each the time.

This relationship was published successful precocious 2024. We're reprinting it arsenic 2025 draws to a close. Some facts and figures whitethorn person changed successful the ensuing year.

Gail Randle’s attack to status surviving has a batch to bash with staying retired of trouble.