I’m surprised the number of successful account holders isn’t higher.
It's higher than you think. It's almost effortless to save a million dollars these days. Using just 10% of your income to fund an IRA or 401k from when you are in your 20s guarantees multi-millionaire status. Those with company matches can get to the million dollar mark with just 6 or 7 percent saved.
There are already 20 million "millionaires" in the U.S. today, mostly Baby Boomers, and that figure is exploding as the Gen X'ers come into retirement range.
Of course, having a million dollars isn't what it used to be. I tell my 30-something sons to expect to have at least five million saved up before they can retire. Just one million won't cut it.
$5,000,000 is a lot of money to put away in a retirement account while working. They cap the maximum that can be put in an IRA is $6k or $7k after 50. For a 401K it is $19k or $26k. That’s for today. It was much lower years ago when most established their accounts.
Very few employees can afford to top out a 401K the average income for an earner is about $45k.
They really want to go after the accounts with between $500k - $1.5M. That is a lot of the accounts out there.
I thinks it because the retirement account isn’t the only account for savings. Maxed out Roth IRAs won’t accrue that much. Some people A lot put in enough to maximize the tax break on the traditional ira. Then the rest is invested elsewhere.