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Economics

BMI Percentile Calculator for Men and Women in the United States

Economics      by

On this page is a BMI percentile calculator for men and women, 18 years old and up in the United States. Although the US BMI distribution mostly matches for females and males across the range, there is divergence at higher and lower BMI percentiles.

BMI is a height and weight based formula to estimate whether a person has a healthy weight for their height. Use our BMI Calculator to compute a BMI using height and weight as inputs.

BMI Percentile Calculator for Men and Women in the United States


Data comes from 5,662 adults (2,944 female and 2,718 male) with valid BMIs in the CDC’s  2015-16 NHANES survey. Heights and weights measured at a mobile examination center.

Median and Average BMI for Men and Women

As we mentioned in our post on the distribution of BMIs for the United States, the adult average BMI was 29.3 and adult median BMI was 28.2. Mean and median varied a bit for women and men in the sample.

Average and Median BMI for Women

In the United States in 2016 among adults, the median female BMI was 28.3. Women averaged a BMI of 29.58.

Average and Median BMI for Men

For men in the United States 18 or older in 2016, the median BMI was 28.0. Men averaged a BMI of 29.01.

Selected BMI Percentiles for Men and Women

As we mentioned in the introduction, men and women had BMI distributions which reasonably matched near the center of the BMI distribution. At the extremes is where we see a divergence: men had higher BMIs at the lower percentiles, and women had higher BMIs at the higher percentiles of the BMI distribution.

Here are some selected breakpoints for men and women at various percentiles:

US Female and Male BMI PercentileWomenMen
519.920.7
1021.322.2
2022.924.0
3024.825.5
4026.526.8
5028.328.0
6030.329.5
7032.431.2
8035.333.4
9039.636.7
9543.840.3

The sexes have parity at the 47th percentile, where both women and men break at a BMI of 27.7. At the lowest extreme, the 1st percentile ends at a BMI of 17.6 for women and for males at 18.1. The 99th percentile for BMI starts at 53.9 for women and 49.7 for men.

Healthy and Non-Healthy BMI Distribution for Men and Women

While it has failings on an individual level, BMI is an excellent indicator for health status on a population basis. Over a large population, body composition, diet, and exercise habits even out making classifications by BMI broadly useful.

The CDC splits BMI into 4 categories for adults:

  • < 18.5 Underweight
  • 18.5 – 25 Healthy Weight
  • 25 – 30 Overweight
  • 30 and up Obese
Applying the CDC guidelines to male and female BMIs in the United States, here’s the estimated breakdown of BMI categories:
American BMI CategoryEstimated WomenPercentage of WomenEstimated MenPercentage of Men
Underweight2,225,1201.79%1,532,1361.32%
Healthy Weight37,011,96229.71%28,959,54725.00%
Overweight34,021,53027.31%41,961,73836.22%
Obese51,302,66441.19%43,399,95037.46%

How About an Anorexia BMI?

Please note that BMI is not the only criteria for the eating disorder Anorexia Nervosa, nor does a sufficient BMI rule it out (consult a doctor to be sure). Neither is anorexia the only eating disorder that causes low BMI. However, one of the diagnostic criteria for anorexia is (or was) a BMI of 17.5 or below.

To be careful, we will call our division “maximum BMI of 17.5”. Here’s how many men and women we estimate maintained that BMI or below in 2016:

BMI 17.5 or Below in the US, Estimated
Adult FemalesPrevalenceAdult MalesPrevalence
1,103,5570.89%619,1020.54%

Note that the data is skewed by this article’s focus on adult males and females. Anorexia is most common for females between the ages of 15-24 so we are missing some important ages.

BMI Calculator for Women illustrating athletic woman.
BMI often misclassifies athletic individuals.

American BMI Distributions for Women and Men

Disclaimer: Nothing on this site, including BMI numbers and categories, is medical advice. Always consult a doctor, nutritionist, trainer, or other professional with concerns about your health or BMI. Also to be clear, BMI is not the best indicator of healthy weight status in an individual: it ignores individual body composition.

As we’ve mentioned before, BMI is a useful indicator but not necessarily the best number to target for your own goals. Readings that incorporate more inputs (such as body fat percentage) give a better picture of body composition. That doesn’t mean this data is “bad”, though – on a population level variations smooth out. We can say that the majority of both men and women were either overweight or obese in 2016.

(We’ll try to characterize how often the CDC’s categories misclassify individuals in another post.)

Did any of this data come as a surprise? Did you roughly expect these BMI distributions for men and women? Let us know what you think!

BMI Percentile Calculator: Body Mass Indexes in the United States

Economics      by

On this page is a BMI percentile calculator for adults 18 and older in the United States.

BMI is a formula based on height and weight which estimates whether a person is in a healthy range. To calculate body mass index for you or someone else, use our BMI Calculator.

BMI Percentile Calculator for the United States


Data comes from 5,662 adults with valid BMIs in the 2015-16 NHANES survey from the CDC. Heights and weights were measured at a mobile examination center.

Median and Average BMI in the United States

In 2016, the United States adult average BMI was 29.3. The United States adult median BMI was 28.2.

Here are the BMI breakpoints for selected percentiles:

US Adult BMI PercentileBMI
523.0
2023.4
3025.1
4026.7
5028.2
6029.8
7031.8
8034.3
9038.4
9542.6

Non-Healthy and Healthy BMIs in the United States

The CDC categorizes BMI in one of four ways for adults:

  • < 18.5 Underweight
  • 18.5 – 25 Healthy Weight
  • 25 – 30 Overweight
  • 30 and up Obese

Using these breakdowns, here’s the breakdown of the number of American adults in each category:

American Adults by BMI CategoryEstimated AmericansPercentage
Underweight3,758,9441.56%
Healthy Weight65,988,67927.45%
Overweight75,950,84931.59%
Obese94,716,17539.40%
Total American Adults240,414,647100.00%

American BMI Distributions

First: nothing on this site – including calculated BMI and category – is medical advice!

BMI comes from a simple equation feeding a complex topic. BMI is an element of the communication between you and a professional such as a doctor, nutritionist, or trainer. Always consult a professional on medical topics.

BMI Percentile can fail to convey nuance, like athleticism.
BMI ranges can be incorrect, especially for athletes.

Remember, BMI is not a measure of body fat, nor is it strictly a measure of “Health”. Even though there are guidelines presented by government agencies, it’s only an equation based on weight and total mass.

Of important note: BMI ignores body composition. BMI misclassifications include athletes incorrectly classified as overweight as well as individuals with low muscle mass classified as underweight or healthy weight.

Is BMI a Useful Health Indicator?

BMI, while useful for many individuals (and the start of a health conversation), is very useful for population summaries like this one. While there are huge individual variations in body composition, it’s easier to generalize compositions for a large population.

In short: people vary in their dieting and exercise habits. For example, your author has a BMI of 25.9 and isn’t worried about his classification.

We’ll try to characterize how often BMI disagrees with other measures (such as body fat percentage) in a future post.

How did the American adult BMI distribution strike you? About where you expected or were there any surprises in the distribution?

Looking at the Job Market by Proxy in 09/18: Quits to Separations

Economics      by

While we don’t write on it every month, JOLTS, or the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey from the BLS, is one of our favorite surveys.

Although it has only existed since 2000, it attempts to characterize how and why (and when!) jobs turnover, and lets us look at how people and firms are behaving at an impressively high resolution.

Quits to Separations in July 2018

Our favorite indicator of job market strength is the quits to separation ratio. Although JOLTS hasn’t been around for an extremely long time, the strength of the QtS ratio is enormous.

Here is a measure that, in one number, breaks down the confidence of job seekers in the market by summarizing the number of quits versus the total number of jobs turned over. In the worst of times – and we’ve seen 2 recessions while JOLTS has existed –  involuntary turnover (layoffs, firings, and the like) starts to increase.

In good times?

Quit to Separation ratio thru July 2018 (09/18 data)
Quit to Separation ratio thru July 2018 (09/18 data)

Presumably, you see something like the above with most separations coming from quits. In July of 2018 the ratio clocked in at a very strong 64.75%.

That’s the largest print we’ve ever seen from the survey, so we’re in uncharted territory here. That said, ~2/3 of all separations being quits feels very strong.

Labor Market Turnover From Quits

Of course, there are limits to ratios.

Either input to the ratio can cause the ratio to change. Imagine a scenario where turnover drops off at the same rate as quits and masks a broader issue (think price to earnings when both fall). The proper check then, therefore, is looking at one of the ratios in relation to something else.

Quits Rate thru July 2018 (09/18 data)
Quits Rate thru July 2018 (09/18 data)

Above we’ve graphed the percentage of positions that turned over from quits (currently 2.4%). Other than a few high prints before the tech bubble burst, you’re looking at highs for that ratio as well. Also interesting to note: before the Great Recession, quits had already started to move south.

Reading the JOLTS Tea Leaves

We know many of you readers are very big fans of JOLTS, and we’re in the same camp. Breaking down turnover numbers reveals a goldmine of information of the revealed preferences kind.

To us, the current numbers scream strength in the labor market. Hopefully it lasts a while.

See anything interesting in the data? Any indicators you watch that tell a similar – or more importantly, a different – story about the labor market?

How Much Do Americans Earn From Side Jobs?

Economics      by

Dollars and twenties on top of a computer.

In one post we looked at the time Americans spend on side activities. In this post we’ll try paint a clearer picture of how serious side jobs are. Let’s examine how much Americans earn doing side work.

How Much Do Americans Earn From Side Jobs?

While researching the prevalence of side jobs and income earned outside of a primary occupation, we’ve found somewhere around 31% of all American adults have some side hustle.

It begs the question, though: “how serious are these jobs?”.

One of the questions in the 2017 SHED was “About how much of your monthly income do you get from paid work activities or side jobs?“.

If the respondent had a spouse or partner, the question was for both – percentage of all income earned “from you and your spouse or partner”. Here’s how responses shook out:

Percentage of Total Income Earned from Side Jobs (American Adults Who Worked a Side Job)
Percentage of Total Income Earned from Side Jobs (American Adults Who Worked a Side Job)

Respondents mostly picked ’round’ numbers as their income percentile from side jobs. As you look at the graph, imagine a curve sloping up to 2-3% then sloping down to 20% (followed by a long tail).

(Also interestingly, and as we saw in previous posts, some people make all their money from side jobs.)

What could cause someone to make 100% of money from a side job?

  • Temporary training or education
  • Internships
  • Unemployment
  • Other various reasons for not taking home a paycheck from a main occupation

Or, you know, trolly responses to the survey.

How Much Americans Make From Side Jobs (Cumulative)

Here we tallied the cumulative number and percentage of people who earned some overall percentage from side jobs.

Percentage of Overall IncomePercentage of Side WorkersCumulative Percentage
017.96%17.96%
119.11%37.07%
27.50%44.58%
31.70%46.27%
40.34%46.61%
517.97%64.58%
60.24%64.82%
70.34%65.16%
80.45%65.61%
90.06%65.67%
1015.28%80.95%
152.69%84.10%
203.81%88.08%
251.35%89.48%
301.71%91.22%
401.42%92.97%
501.54%94.90%
750.28%96.10%
900.48%97.10%
950.21%97.31%

Obviously, we omitted some responses, but you can see the interesting pattern that emerged.

Only around 5.1% of side job workers make more money from side jobs than their other activities.

Side Jobs as a Significant Source of Income

Whatever you feel a significant amount of income is, the Fed actually posed a question directly on it.

Respondents were asked, “In the past 12 months, to what extent has the money earned from occasional paid work activities or side jobs been a significant source of income for you?”.

Was Side Income a Significant Source of Income?Number of AmericansPercentage of Side Job Workers
Refused658,9040.89%
Does not apply11,468,18915.44%
Not at all29,878,76240.24%
Somewhat21,894,28929.48%
Very much11,016,35114.84%

Interestingly, a full 44.3% of people working side jobs found the income they were receiving either somewhat or very significant.

What is a Significant Amount of Income When Working a Side Job?

Being a subjective question it’s unfair to guess the cutoff linearly from the cumulative responses above.

But, for a second, imagine every American is in perfect agreement on what significant entails.

Using that limited criteria, the cutoff for significant income is earning 4-5% of your total income on the side.

Side Jobs as a Regular Source of Income

While the Fed asked about significant income, they also asked a question more focused on supplemental income. “In the past 12 months, to what extent has the money earned from occasional paid work activities or side jobs been a regular source of income for you?”.

Here are the responses:

Did Your Side Job Provide a Regular Source of Income?Number of AmericansPercentage of Side Job Workers
Refused531,7510.71%
Does not apply11,186,79614.93%
Not at all38,703,26251.66%
Somewhat16,972,63422.66%
Very much7,522,05210.04%

 

These numbers were even lower than the significant income numbers above.

Presumably, some of the aforementioned significant income was earned in a lump sum or otherwise wasn’t year round. This might be seasonal employment for holidays, or the infamous summer job.

Any more examples you can think of? Temporarily selling things online?

Looking at Side Jobs by Earnings

Our data in this post comes from the 2017 Federal Reserve Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking. We’ve been using it extensively lately to look at retirement and side jobs in the United States – and it’s a colorful and extensive dataset for those purposes.

This was an interesting data set to dive into. The subjective questions are interesting. We get a sense of how regular these side jobs are and if people feel they provide significant income as well.

They also cause you to think through your own priors!

My gut feel? Significant income feels like earning another month’s worth of income out of a side job. That’s ~8% for a single  or ~4% for a couple per earner. Conveniently, the latter number matches the guesstimate from above…

How Much Time Do Americans Spend on Side Jobs?

Economics      by

We’ve looked at the most common side jobs in America as well as why Americans work side jobs. In this post we’ll look at the time spent on side jobs by Americans.

American Adult Time Spent on Side Jobs

One of the more surprising numbers we’ve seen is that 30.7% of American adults earn some sort of side money. That made us wonder: how much time do they spend on these side pursuits?

For this question, the exact survey prompt was “How much time do you usually spend per month on occasional paid work activities or side jobs, other than your primary job?”.

Conveniently, that sidesteps most of the subjectivity of what’s a job and what’s a hobby. Here’s how much time Americans spend on side hustles:

Hours Spent on Side Pursuits by Americans
Hours Spent on Side Pursuits by Americans

An important note: 0 hours was a response to the prompt, only asked of side-job working respondents. Americans who weren’t working side jobs also spent 0 hours on side jobs (presumably).

American Adults: Hours Per Month Spent on Side Jobs in 2017

Our data series comes from the 2017 Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking, a Federal Reserve Survey that asks about these topics – and a ton of other interesting stuff, to boot.

Here’s the data in table form. We’ve also included the cumulative percentage of side workers working that number (or fewer) of hours on their side pursuits.

Hours Per MonthPercentage of Side WorkersPercentage of American AdultsNumber of AdultsCumulative Percentage of Side Workers
015.83%4.75%11,534,17515.83%
19.12%2.73%6,645,08224.95%
28.28%2.48%6,033,84933.24%
34.18%1.25%3,043,69437.41%
44.39%1.32%3,198,40841.80%
58.24%2.47%6,005,53650.05%
62.56%0.77%1,866,16852.61%
70.51%0.15%374,15853.12%
83.10%0.93%2,256,87056.22%
90.30%0.09%220,98256.52%
1010.25%3.07%7,470,95466.78%
110.04%0.01%30,37766.82%
122.89%0.87%2,107,69969.71%
130.05%0.02%38,34869.76%
140.14%0.04%102,42069.91%
152.62%0.78%1,905,98672.52%
161.20%0.36%876,94973.73%
170.01%0.00%3,64573.73%
180.37%0.11%272,96774.10%
207.42%2.22%5,405,72881.52%
210.02%0.01%13,09581.54%
220.21%0.06%155,53981.76%
230.02%0.01%17,81581.78%
240.94%0.28%687,38882.72%
251.18%0.35%856,89583.90%
280.24%0.07%171,92884.14%
290.05%0.01%33,97084.18%
303.09%0.92%2,247,58487.27%
320.42%0.13%305,59087.69%
330.05%0.01%35,64987.74%
350.55%0.16%399,56588.28%
360.26%0.08%190,67388.55%
380.21%0.06%150,22788.75%
390.14%0.04%100,01288.89%
403.42%1.03%2,494,02092.31%
420.08%0.02%56,71692.39%
450.29%0.09%208,97692.68%
480.19%0.06%137,15492.87%
501.14%0.34%829,79694.01%
520.03%0.01%20,62394.03%
550.18%0.05%128,69294.21%
560.05%0.02%36,49794.26%
600.96%0.29%701,53595.22%
640.04%0.01%31,03695.27%
650.19%0.06%139,27395.46%
700.37%0.11%267,97895.82%
720.16%0.05%115,07995.98%
750.19%0.06%141,52696.18%
760.02%0.01%15,92396.20%
800.89%0.27%649,83497.09%
810.04%0.01%26,05297.13%
840.01%0.00%5,97097.13%
850.02%0.00%11,57897.15%
900.29%0.09%210,30597.44%
960.09%0.03%63,30197.53%
1000.65%0.19%470,82998.17%
1010.01%0.00%7,37298.18%
1020.02%0.00%11,89098.20%
1050.08%0.02%58,65798.28%
1080.04%0.01%27,45398.32%
1200.29%0.09%208,16198.60%
1240.02%0.01%12,65198.62%
1250.04%0.01%25,72898.66%
1260.06%0.02%40,75598.71%
1290.03%0.01%25,13598.75%
1300.04%0.01%27,05898.78%
1320.01%0.00%7,85598.79%
1400.04%0.01%30,86298.84%
1500.13%0.04%95,35298.97%
1600.21%0.06%155,75499.18%
1760.05%0.01%34,17599.23%
1800.06%0.02%42,03899.29%
1920.03%0.01%20,47899.31%
2000.34%0.10%251,05799.66%
2050.04%0.01%28,19599.70%
2400.09%0.03%67,18299.79%
2500.03%0.01%21,09899.82%
3000.03%0.01%20,03799.85%
3200.03%0.01%23,13499.88%
4110.04%0.01%31,18499.92%
4250.01%0.00%6,19199.93%
6000.06%0.02%44,83599.99%
7200.01%0.00%6,999100.00%

 

The Pursuit of Side Jobs

There’s definitely some interesting data to unpack here.

  • Roughly half of all American side workers dedicate 5 or fewer hours per month to side jobs.
  • 2/3 of side workers put 10 or fewer hours into side hustles.
  • Around 10% of all American adults spent more than 10 hours a month on side jobs.
  • ~11% of side workers (~3.5% of American adults) put in at least another full-time week at side pursuits a month, or 40 hours.

Some of the responses were, as you might expect… improbable.

Considering there are only 730 hours in an average month it’s hard to swallow the idea of 720 hours of side-work. Maybe it makes sense if your side hustle is a real-life production of The Truman Show.

Other answers feel better.

150-200 hours may be an “unreasonable” number, but for a bootstrapping startup founder with a day job it makes sense. Around 0.35% of American adults spend 150 hours or more on side pursuits monthly.

Why Do Americans Work Side Jobs?

Economics      by

In the last post, we looked at the most popular side jobs worked by Americans in 2017. As the most logical followup, in this post we’ll look at why Americans worked side jobs. Once again, data comes from the 2017 Federal Reserve Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking.

Why Do Americans Work Side Jobs?

One of the relevant questions asked for the survey was multiple choice – essentially, “name all the reasons you are earning income on the side”. It gave a pretty extensive set of options, everything from working on skills to supplementing main job income.

Why Did Americans Work Side Jobs in 2017
Why Did Americans Work Side Jobs in 2017?

Earning money on top of a primary job was the most popular reason to work a side job. By far.

For fun (hobby) was another popular option, followed by earning as a primary source of income and to help out family.

Using a side job to earn as a primary source of income is an interesting response. Underpaid careers, unpaid internships,  career changes, and temporary training and education probably boosted this one quite a bit. Since ~31% of Americans earned side income, that reason curiously applies to around 6% of American adults. Any ideas?

What Was the Top Reason Americans Worked Side Jobs?

The second – but perhaps more important – question about reasons was on what a respondent’s primary motivation was on a side job. Interestingly, the skills and networking options faded away to rounding errors:

Top Reasons Americans Worked a Side Job in 2017
Top Reasons Americans Earned Side Money in 2017

Again, the two dominant reasons were to earn supplemental money and to have fun with a hobby. As before, earning a primary income on the side and helping family members were reasonably popular. This time, though, the primary income earning reason gained on the helping a friend option.

All in all, 65.74% of Americans who worked part time did it primarily to earn – whether as a primary or supplemental source of income or to help out family. A mere 3.55% of Americans did it to network or develop skills for a (presumably) primary career.

Reactions to American Side Job Motivations

As we’ve been looking into these ‘side jobs’, we’ve realized they don’t all fit our perception of the definition of ‘job’. Today, for both questions, ‘as a hobby’ was an option – and even the IRS looks at hobbies different than jobs.

Still, caveats and pedantism aside, earning money on the side is a very popular thing in America. As we saw in the last post, somewhere approaching 31% of American Adults have some side-earning activity outside their main job. Perhaps expectedly(!?), the main reason Americans work side hustles is for the pay increase… followed by “as a hobby”. ~65% of all side jobs were worked primarily for the earnings… which seems about on point.

Also, there’s no reason something that starts out as a hobby can’t become something more. Isn’t that right, reader of a website named Don’t Quit Your Day Job…?

See anything interesting in the data? Next we’ll look at revealed preferences instead of stated ones and see how hard Americans work these side hustles.

 

What Are the Most Common Side Jobs in America?

Economics      by

Woman holding lemonade, not a common side job anymore.

Whether you call it a side job, part time work, or a side hustle, Americans are an industrious bunch. How industrious? According to the 2017 Federal Reserve SHED, almost 31% of us work some sort of side job. Let’s explore the most common side jobs in America.

Popular Side Jobs in America

By far, selling items online was the most popular side hustle.

An estimated 10.86% of all adults (and 35.31% of all adults who earned side money) sold something online. On the flip side, ride-sharing and renting out goods or property are very rare side jobs for Americans.

For both categories, only 1.64% of American adults participated in the previous month – roughly 4 million Americans did each.

Most popular side jobs in the US: What side jobs can you do?

 Percentage of American AdultsPercentage of American Part TimersNumber of Adults
Selling goods on-line through eBay,
Craigslist, or other websites.		10.86%35.41%26,619,053
House cleaning, house painting, yard work, or other property maintenance work6.72%21.91%16,472,505
Selling goods or services yourself at flea markets,garage sales, or other temporary physical locations6.46%21.06%15,834,655
Providing other personal services, such as running errands, helping people move, etc.5.63%18.35%13,797,203
Babysitting, child care services, dog walking, or house sitting5.61%18.29%13,750,125
Completing paid online tasks, such as on Amazon Services, Mechanical Turk, Fiverr, Task Rabbit, or YouTube.4.23%13.80%10,371,463
Selling goods at consignment shops or thrift Stores3.78%12.33%9,266,790
Any other paid activities that you have not yet mentioned (do not include taking GfK Surveys).3.75%12.23%9,194,248
Disabled adult or elder care services2.39%7.80%5,865,770
Other online paid activities (do not include taking GfK Surveys). 2.19%7.13%5,357,750
Renting out property online, such as your car, your place of residence, etc.1.64%5.35%4,025,313
Driving using a ride-sharing app such as Uber or Lyft.1.64%5.35%4,020,541

Want to see the above in a chart? We’ve got your back:

Most popular side jobs in America
Most popular side jobs in America in 2017.

Once Upon a Side Hustle in America

Surprised to see the current breakdown?

Particularly, now knowing that 11% of American adults sold online feels high (even though we ourselves fit that definition).The ride-sharing and property numbers are about on point though. They mesh well with the gig economy statistics we saw from the Bureau of Labor Statistics earlier this year.

As for ~ 31% of all American adults doing something on the side?

Yes, we can see it. But hey, you’re here reading this site… perhaps we’re a little biased here?

How Much Do Early Retirees – Or Extremely Early Retirees – Have Saved?

Economics      by

Picture of rocky canoyns and a sky at sunset or morning.

In this post, we’ll look at early retirees – and some of their extreme early retiree counterparts. How much do they have saved for retirement? How do they differ from the general population?

Let’s find out using the 2017 Federal Reserve Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking.

Savings of American Early Retirees

The SHED has two ways to classify adults as retired.

  1. The surveyors classify the respondent as retired
  2. The respondent self-classifies as retired

There isn’t, of course, 100% overlap in those designations. In this post we’ll look at people who have self-selected as retired.

One of the questions on the survey also asks when a respondent retired. For folks who answered, we’ll use that to classify extreme early retirees (40 or younger) or early retirees (56 or younger).

Savings Accumulated by Early Retirees

We only include here people who were asked and gave an answer:

Savings and InvestmentsExtreme Early RetireesEarly RetireesAll Early RetireesAll Retirees
Not sure1.0%4.3%3.8%2.9%
Under $50,00056.3%40.5%43.0%39.8%
$50,000 – $99,9998.8%12.7%12.1%11.1%
$100,000 – $249,99913.3%14.1%13.9%13.8%
$250,000 – $499,9998.9%8.3%8.4%12.0%
$500,000 – $999,9992.7%9.0%8.1%9.1%
$1,000,000 or more9.0%11.0%10.7%11.2%

… We’re with you! That’s not what we were expecting from the responses. In fact, it’s even the opposite of what we expected to see.

The exact question text is, “What is the approximate total amount of your household’s savings and investments?“.

Early Retiree Savings by When Retired, Current American Retirees 2017
Early Retiree Savings by Retirement Age, Current American Retirees 2017 (Click to zoom)

Before you ask: this wasn’t a question about strict retirement assets.

It also wasn’t a question about how much they had when they retired. Maybe they spent it down before this survey, they are already retired. The next section might shed some light on that possibility.

Savings of Current Self-Classified Retirees

In the last section, we used a person’s reported age of retirement to look at the differences in savings among retirees.

It gave some strange results, to say the least…

In this section, let’s look at the current retiree population based on their age at survey time. Again using self-classified retirees, here’s what folks have saved based on their current age:

Savings and InvestmentsExtreme Early Retirees (< 41)Early Retirees (41-56)All Early Retirees (< 56)All Retirees
Not sure4.36%5.44%5.20%2.94%
Under $50,00054.34%49.71%50.77%39.80%
$50,000 – $99,99919.03%12.40%13.91%11.15%
$100,000 – $249,9999.13%11.97%11.32%13.75%
$250,000 – $499,9994.63%9.12%8.09%12.00%
$500,000 – $999,9998.50%5.01%5.80%9.13%
$1,000,000 or more0.00%6.36%4.91%11.22%

And once again… a head-scratcher!

The Savings of Early Retirees: Unexpected?

As you look at more expansive retirement populations and older populations, the savings amounts increase.

When sitting down to research this post, we predicted early retirees and extreme early retirees would have more resources saved than older retirees. Earlier, research showed how important Social Security is to retirement age: if people are waiting out Social Security, we thought their assets would be lighter in retirement since they could lean on a reliable stream of income.

That, obviously, does not show up in the data!

  • Are the early retirees spending their resources quickly?
  • Have they calculated their needed savings down to the cent?
  • Are some savings an investments misclassified?

Are some early retirees – as theorized by many of you readers – mis-classified or “inappropriately” self-declaring in-retirement? Were we expecting the wrong thing going into this post?

Strange Results on Early Retiree Savings

It’s tough to say what’s happening here. We know wealth is out there (see our net worth by age calculator for examples).

Do you have a theory based on what this data is showing?

Along with this post we have a few more on retirement. We looked at the early retirement age (and the extreme early retirement age), as well as survey data on how common early retirement is. We also looked at how the population of American retirees pay for retirement.

Early Retirement: How Common – Or Rare – Is It?

Economics      by

Golf green which is something an early retiree might care about.

In a recent post, we argued that 55 years old as the early retirement age cutoff in America. In this post, we’ll look at how rare early retirement is in the US.

As a preview, 24.29% of current living retirees report retiring before age 56.

Number Retiring by Age of Living American Retirees in 2017

One way to calculate early retirement is to… ask current retirees when they retired!

By taking the entire population of respondents who consider themselves retired, here’s the breakdown of when they became early retirees:

Age GroupPercentage of Current RetireesNumber of Current Retirees
17-5524.29%16,206,818
17-6143.66%29,135,285
17-291.38%921,566
30-340.47%311,744
35-390.79%528,303
40-441.95%1,303,605
45-493.37%2,250,388
50-549.58%6,394,379
556.74%4,496,832
56-6119.38%12,928,466
Refused0.97%647,047
Don’t Know/Remember11.22%7,483,879

(We include ‘Don’t Know’ and ‘Refused’ here because there is no easy way to assign them to a category.)

Even with the categories counted, roughly a quarter of all retirees recounted retiring at age 55 or before. A mere .47% and .79% of retirees retired in their early and late 30s, respectively.

Percentage of Current Retirees Retiring in Range in US in 2017
Percentage of Current Retirees Retiring in Range

Note that although the numbers above are accurately portrayed, this probably isn’t the best measurement. Consider: A 90 year old may recall retiring at 45 – but that scenario doesn’t speak to one’s ability to retire early in the current economy.

The next couple of sets look at the number of Americans per age group who retired early and are currently retired.

People In Early Retirement: Age of Early Retirees by Federal Reserve Classification

Another way to gauge early retirement is to look at how old retirees are today.

As we mentioned, economic conditions change. A fairer view of early retirement might come from people who are living as early retirees today.

Here are those results based on Federal Reserve classification:

Age GroupPercentage RetiredEstimated Retired
17-553.71%1,829,542
17-6114.16%6,976,829
17-390.29%142,644
40-440.13%62,120
45-490.29%145,004
50-542.17%1,070,756
550.76%374,966
56-6110.45%5,147,287

Data for this post comes from the 2017 Federal Reserve Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking (SHED). For every entry in the 2017 SHED, the Federal Reserve classified the respondent as:

  • Working – as a paid employee or self-employed
  • Not working – looking for work, disabled, other, or on temporary layoff
  • (or) Not working – retired

As we discussed in our post on how Americans pay for retirement, some folks take exception to “self-labeled” forms of retirement. This section’s classification is the survey’s strictest – and is reflected by only 3.71% of 55 and youngers being early retirees.

The next section repeats the same methodology except it allows respondents to self-label as retired.

Number In Early Retirement: Age of Early Retirees Based on Self-Classification

Along with labelling respondents, there was also a question allowing respondents to self-select as retirees. It significantly changes the results; there are enough (super?) extreme early retirees that we are able to look at 18-29 year old retirees.

Age GroupPercentage Retired Estimated Retired
18-554.44%6,707,751
18-290.71%339,378
30-342.50%477,368
35-392.45%520,541
40-443.29%710,356
45-497.64%1,178,072
50-5412.70%2,504,151
5516.68%1,064,942

The eye-catching age group here is the – after weighting – 340,000 Americans currently retired before age 30. Also of interest: there are another 1,000,000 Americans who retired before 40 (significantly more than we expected).

Early Retirement by Current Population in America, 2017
Number of Early Retirees in Current US Population, 2017

Other interesting numbers that stand out:

  • 4.44% of 18-55 year old Americans are early retirees
  • An estimated 16.68% of 55 year olds in America in 2017 were retired
  • And roughly 1 in 8 50-54 year old Americans are early retirees

Due to the timing of commonly available government benefits, early retirement (usually) requires considerable resources or alternative streams of income to stop working. 

Conclusions on Early Retirement

There’s – of course – some controversy over exactly what the early retirement age really is. We like using 55 years old as our cutoff; early retirement there is a rare thing in America but not unheard of.

To us, the most interesting number was of self-classified living retirees in America.

24.29% retired at age 55 or earlier!

Interestingly, 1.38% of respondents reported retiring by 30. Those numbers don’t match the current snapshot, so the economic stories (and health?) of those retirees must be interesting tales.

Any numbers stick out to you? Are these numbers on early retirement rarity roughly where you’d expect?

Retirement Planning: How Do Americans Pay For Retirement?

Economics      by

In this post we use 2017 Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking microdata to see how do Americans pay for retirement, and also look at what is retirement.

Hopefully this data is useful for your own retirement planning!

How Do Americans Pay For Retirement?

A SHED series of questions enumerated retirement funding sources and asked people who self-classified as retired if they utilize them.

As you can see, sources vary quite a bit – but there are some interesting threads in the data.

How Americans pay for retirement chart including Social Security
How Do Americans Pay For Retirement? The percentage asked answering for each source.

Note that ‘My Spouse/Partner Has a Job’ doesn’t use the same base. Only retirees with spouses or partners were asked about that funding source.

As you can see, for current retirees defined benefit pensions are the most common funding source. That’s both Social Security as well as other funds of the same classification. Of course, outside of Social Security it’s also a rarer benefit nowadays.

As for defined contribution plans (401(k)s, 403(b)s, etc.) only 43.16% of current retirees are using them to fund retirement. IRAs clocked in at 42.71% utilization. 58.1% of retirees reported using either IRAs or defined contribution plans, higher than non-Social Security defined benefit plans.

The major funding source not well captured is downsized homes or other capture of primary home equity. Some respondents may have answered in the real estate category, but primary residences aren’t split out. (Here’s the guidebook if you’d like to see more, search K10_h).

How Many Americans Fund Retirement with Only Social Security?

Unsurprisingly, Social Security is the funding source most used by American retirees. Some self-classified American retirees were still working, had spouses working, or were not yet of age but still 86.34% of (claimed) retirees collect.

We were curious, however. How many Americans are funding retirement with only Social Security?

Social Security is supposed to be a supplemental program, but we know this safety net is sometimes the only source in place.

Here’s how many retirees reported funding retirement with only Social Security or a combination of Social Security and family help alone.

 NumberPercentage of Retirees
Only social security7,656,84411.47%
Social Security or Family Help8,631,39612.94%

The Social Security Administration agrees on the primary funding source bit. To that end, they delved into the topic with this fact sheet.

From their statistics:

  • 9/10 Americans 65+ collect Social Security
  • 1/3 of all retiree income is Social Security

As for treating Social Security as a primary income source, they note:

“Among elderly Social Security beneficiaries, 23% of married couples and about 43% of unmarried persons rely on Social Security for 90% or more of their income.”

What is Retirement?

Very interestingly, the survey also asks retirees about three controversial sources of income.

Americans who classified as retired might be paying for their retirement through a job, a spouse’s/partner’s job, or even a business. As a bonus, it also asks broadly about real estate.

Popular blogger Mr. Money Mustache first discussed the “Internet Retirement Police” back in 2013 (after a spark by Jacob of Early Retirement Extreme).  He noted that the “Internet Retirement Police” discount people being retired when retirees have certain funding sources.

As the scenario went, here’s a theoretical quote:

“It says right in the blog that he does construction work. Also he manages his own rental houses. And has a blog. That doesn’t sound like retirement to me.”

We here on DQYDJ discussed the definition of retirement in back in April of that year.

The Federal Reserve Branch of the ‘Retirement Police’

Inadvertently, the Federal Reserve has weighed in on the topic. There are two classifications for ‘retired’ in the survey – the Fed classified a respondent as a retiree or the respondent classified him or herself.

49.3 million adults are of the former type while 66.7 million fit the latter – and the category the Federal Reserve uses is “Not working – retired”.

Here’s where the two definitions differ:

Retiree Funding SourceClassified by FedPercentage of Retiree TypeClassify SelfPercentage of Retiree Type
With Job894,8051.82%6,521,0799.77%
Number with Job or Spouse Job7,903,00716.04%17,651,29526.45%
Number with Job, Spouse Job, or Business8,946,75718.16%18,963,48028.42%
Number with Job, Spouse/Partner Job, Business, Real Estate Income or Sale
13,833,95828.08%24,556,60636.80%

Does Retirement Classification Matter?

For precision and policy? Yes, but not for opinion.

It’s obvious that a large number of Americans don’t hew to official measurements of retirement. Almost 10 million extra Americans consider themselves retired while having a job, a partner with a job, or a business, versus the Federal Reserve’s classification.

Retirement categorization is a tricky thing. 26.2% of self-classified retirees don’t fit the Fed’s mold.

Want to read more? We’ve also looked at American retirement savings and retirement savings by age.

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