Topic
Money households set aside and draw down in later life, via workplace plans like 401(k)s, individual accounts, and pensions.
Goldman Sachs Asset Management's 2026 retirement survey finds 36.6% of households earning over $500,000 say they primarily live paycheck to paycheck. The share bottoms at 22.2% at $100,000 to $200,000, so pay explains the low end and spending the top.
Reality
Fidelity counted a record 769,000 401(k) millionaires in the second quarter, up 19% on the quarter and 30% on the year. They are 3% of the savers in its plans, and a 19% jump in one quarter points to balances crossing $1 million as much as to saving.
Reality
Life insurers' group ACLI says its US middle-class resilience index fell 10 points in the second quarter to 10, half its first-quarter reading. That still leaves it above the historical average, and the third quarter will show whether gas prices and slower wage growth push it below zero.
Reality
Vanguard says 51% of its 401(k) participants earning $150,000 or more maxed out last year, down from 60% in 2018. For employers, the open question is whether senior staff are leaving the plan or trimming what they defer above the company match, and the one case reported in detail is a trim.
Reality
Vanguard says the share of $150,000-plus earners in its plans hitting the 401(k) max fell to 51% from 60% in 2018 as limits and incomes rose. Planners say savers who keep the employer match are sending the next dollar to Roth IRAs and brokerage accounts, so the advice now turns on where the money sits.
Reality
Goldman Sachs Asset Management found 36% of US respondents earning over $300,000 say they live paycheck to paycheck, against 23% in the $100,000-$300,000 band. For employers, that makes salary a poor guide to which senior staff feel financially secure.
Reality
TIAA's survey finds 51% of Gen Z believe AI threatens their ability to save for retirement, 11 points above the national average. Most of that fear is about pay, and sponsors cannot yet see whether it lifts contributions or goes into rainy-day funds.
Reality
Goldman Sachs Asset Management's retirement survey found that 37% of people earning more than $500,000 live paycheck to paycheck. Goldman cautions that this strain may mean something different for retirement at that income, so the figure is a reason to look at rich clients' budgets.
Reality
Goldman Sachs says 39% of Americans in its retirement survey raised their savings into 2026, down from 55% a year earlier. Confidence fell by less, to 58% on track from 68%, so saving behaviour is weakening faster than sentiment.
Reality
More than 80% of 401(k)s default into mostly cap-weighted target-date funds that buy more of the Magnificent Seven, about 30% of the S&P 500, as they grow. At Amazon, a paper gain on Anthropic supplied almost $17 billion of nearly $30 billion in first-quarter net income.
Reality
Economists at BCG put the oldest Gen Z workers at a median $42,000 in constant dollars, 25% above Millennials at the same age, and date the year the young became gloomier than the old to around 2025.
Reality
WalletHub finds 43% of Americans expect to work until they die and 29% are counting on relatives. The one measured labor-supply figure in the file, employment among the over-65s, has climbed about 0.3 points a year.
Reality