Millionaire Retirees Spend $70,000 to $120,000 a Year. Here’s Why.
Most $1 million-plus households spend between $70,000 and $120,000 a year in retirement. Federal Reserve, JPMorgan, and Boldin’s own planning data all converge on this range for what millionaires spend in retirement, and it appears almost everywhere you look.
Keep this in mind the next time you see an ad claiming some huge share of millionaires plan to retire on a flat $100,000 a year. It’s dressed up to look like an article, from a name you’d recognize. Look for the study behind it and you won’t find one. The ad skips the sample size, doesn’t name a methodology, and gives you nothing to click through and verify.
Federal Reserve and JPMorgan Data Point to the Same Range for Millionaire Retirement Spending
Federal Reserve net worth data and JPMorgan spending analysis point to one conclusion: $1 million-plus households spend $70,000 to $120,000 a year in retirement.
JPMorgan’s Guide to Retirement draws on anonymized household data to track real retirement spending. It ends up in roughly the same territory year after year. The Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances adds important context: most millionaires aren’t the $10 million type. About three out of four $1M+ households sit between $1 million and $3 million in net worth, the same band where the wealthiest retirees concentrate. That’s a much narrower group than the word “millionaire” makes it sound.
So when you hear “millionaire retirement income,” picture a retired couple with a paid-off home and a seven-figure portfolio. That’s the group these numbers describe, a long way from yacht-chartering wealth.
Why Millionaire Retirees Cluster in This Narrow Band
Three things stack together to create this range: a fixed Social Security base, a portfolio that can only produce so much, and a replacement rate most households arrive at without trying.
Start with Social Security. The average retired worker collects a little over $2,000 a month. These households tend to run higher than that. The majority are married, which means two benefits stack instead of one, often backed by stronger earnings histories. A combined $40,000 to $70,000 a year from Social Security alone isn’t unusual.
Then the portfolio math takes over. A $1.5 million portfolio, drawn down at a conservative 4%, produces about $60,000 a year. Add that to Social Security and you’re already at $100,000 to $110,000, before you’ve made a single active decision about your lifestyle.
Think of Social Security as the floor of the house and the portfolio as everything built on top of it. The floor is fixed. What you build depends on what you’ve saved.
Grant and Priya are a hypothetical couple. They retire at 67 and 65 with $1.5 million invested and a combined Social Security benefit of $45,000. They aren’t chasing a specific target, and they still arrive at about $105,000 a year. The structure produces that figure on its own.
Boldin’s Planning Data Confirms the Millionaire Retirement Spending Pattern
Boldin Planner data falls in the same $70,000 to $120,000 band that Federal Reserve and JPMorgan data show, with something the public surveys don’t offer: a read on whether that income proves durable.
Boldin users with $1 million or more in investable assets reflect a similar pattern. Among those who’ve built a recurring income stream, pension, passive, or annuity income, as opposed to a one-time transfer, into a baseline plan, median non-Social Security retirement income clusters like this:
| Investable Assets | Median Non-Social Security Retirement Income |
| $1M–$3M | $36,000 |
| $3M–$5M | $40,600 |
| $5M+ | $51,600 |
Layer a typical Social Security base onto the $1M–$3M group, the largest single band among Boldin’s $1M+ users. That comes out to $76,000 to $106,000, squarely inside the range Fed and JPMorgan data show, calculated from a separate dataset.
Here’s the part no public survey can offer. Boldin’s Monte Carlo probability that a plan holds up, called Chance of Success, comes in at a 99% median across all three asset tiers. The average runs a bit lower, in the 91% to 94% range, pulled down by a thinner tail of less-confident plans. These households don’t only share a similar income range. Their own modeling confirms that income lasts.
What This Data Doesn’t Capture
Boldin’s dataset doesn’t track Social Security as its own income stream. It’s estimated using the public formulas everyone else relies on. About half of $1M+ users, 50% to 54% depending on tier, have built a recurring income stream into a baseline scenario, which skews toward more engaged planners.
Why the Median Is the Right Number to Trust
Trusting the median instead of the average is what makes this Boldin data reliable. Some accounts carry a one-time transfer, like a lump-sum pension payout or a planned account distribution, that doesn’t repeat every year the way pension or passive income does. Counting only genuinely recurring streams, and trusting the median over the mean, is what keeps this data honest.
Why Retirement Spending Doesn’t Scale With Net Worth
Double someone’s net worth and their spending doesn’t double. It barely moves.
Housing, food, and healthcare cost about the same no matter how large the portfolio behind them is. Time and energy run out before money does. Retirees tend to settle into a rhythm within the first few years and stay there, whether their number is $1.2 million or $4 million. Wealthy retirees change how they spend it well before they change how much. Quality and health take priority over sheer volume.
Why Spending Tends to Shrink as Retirement Goes On
Early retirement spending tends to mark the high point on the chart. Most people don’t carry that spending level for the next 20 years.
Morningstar’s David Blanchett documented this in his research on the “retirement spending smile.” Real, inflation-adjusted spending declines through the 60s and 70s, with a possible late uptick tied to healthcare costs. Researchers are still debating that late uptick. A 2026 review in the Financial Planning Review found mixed results. Some studies find spending flattening instead of curving back up, once major late-life medical events get excluded.
Either way, the households that start retirement spending $110,000 or $120,000 a year rarely stay there for two decades straight. They travel less and simplify their lives. Their $100,000 moment is a snapshot of year two or three. It rarely carries through the rest of their lives.
How Taxes and Medicare Hold Retirement Spending in Place
A meaningful share of the $70,000 to $120,000 range comes from managing taxable income as much as from spending less.
How IRMAA Raises Your Medicare Premiums
Once you’re near Medicare age, crossing an IRMAA threshold by even a dollar changes your premiums, and the higher rate lasts a full year. Andy Barton, a CFP® professional and Boldin Advisor, addressed this in a recent Q&A on Roth conversions and IRMAA, pointing out that crossing the first IRMAA tier adds roughly $80 a month on top of the standard Part B premium. The surcharge is also set using income from two years earlier, so a conversion made today can echo into a Medicare bill you won’t see for two years.
How ACA Subsidies Phase Out Before Medicare Age
ACA subsidies phase out once household income crosses a set threshold, well before Medicare eligibility even enters the picture. For a two-person household, that threshold sits at $84,600 in 2026. Andy also walked through how this cutoff plays out for retirees managing taxable income before 65.
One Roth conversion can trip both wires at once. Retirees pulling income from a Roth account add another wrinkle. That spending doesn’t show up as taxable income, so it can hide from any study based on tax data alone.
Few households set out to arrive at exactly $100,000. Smaller decisions add up instead: where to draw income from, when to realize gains. Together they keep a household inside a more efficient structure, almost by accident.
When This Retirement Spending Range Doesn’t Apply to You
The $70,000 to $120,000 range is common, but it isn’t universal. A handful of situations break it on purpose or by circumstance.
Early retirees who haven’t started Social Security yet have to let the portfolio carry the full load. That pushes their total higher in those bridge years. Households in high cost of living areas start from a higher baseline before lifestyle even enters the picture. Some retirees target $150,000, $250,000, or more on purpose, because that’s the life they’ve built and funded for.
The 2026 EBRI Retirement Confidence Survey found a rising share of retirees, about two in five, reporting costs higher than expected. Healthcare drove most of that gap. Not everyone glides into a lower number as the years go by.
Each of these is a variable to plan around. The pattern still stands.
How to Find Your Own Retirement Spending Number
A national average, even a well-sourced one, can’t tell you what your own retirement will cost. This is a different question than the magic number you’re saving toward. Spending and savings targets move independently. Knowing what you’ll spend each year is what turns a savings target into a real plan.
Build your income streams into the Boldin Planner and see where you end up. It uses your real Social Security estimate and portfolio size instead of a national median. The Planner also generates a Chance of Success score built around your specific numbers.
If taxes or Medicare premiums are part of the picture, the Roth Conversion Explorer can help. Test conversions against your own income and IRMAA thresholds, and see the impact before committing to anything.
Social Security, a reasonable withdrawal rate, and a few tax decisions add up to something close to $100,000 on their own. Your own total might fall somewhere else, and the only way to know is to run it.
FAQ on What Millionaires Spend in Retirement
Federal Reserve and JPMorgan data indicate that millionaire retirees, households with $1 million or more in net worth, spend $70,000 to $120,000 a year in retirement. The exact figure depends on portfolio size, Social Security benefits, and where a household falls within the broader millionaire category, which is weighted toward the $1 million to $3 million tier rather than the $10 million-plus range.
Core living costs (housing, food, healthcare) cost about the same no matter how large the portfolio is. Time and energy become the real limit before money does. Retirees settle into a spending rhythm within the first few years and stay close to it, even as the portfolio keeps growing.
The wealth-tier figures come from the Federal Reserve. The Social Security range is a separate estimate, drawn from average benefit data for two-earner households. Married couples in this group often collect a combined $40,000 to $70,000 a year, well above the roughly $25,000 an average single retired worker collects. That income functions as a floor, with portfolio withdrawals layered on top.
Research from Morningstar’s David Blanchett shows real, inflation-adjusted retirement spending tends to decline through a retiree’s 60s and 70s. A possible late uptick tied to healthcare costs follows, a pattern known as the retirement spending smile. More recent research disputes whether that late uptick applies across households, but the early decline appears in most of the data.
Building a plan around your own numbers, rather than leaning on a national average, is the most reliable way to find the retirement income range that fits your household. The Boldin Planner lets you model your Social Security estimate and portfolio withdrawals against your actual spending goals. It also generates a Chance of Success score based on your specific plan instead of a broad population figure.
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