Retirement income
What is a good monthly retirement income for a couple?
A good monthly retirement income for a couple starts at what retirees actually spend. Households headed by someone 65 or over spent an average of $5,119 a month in 2024, on the Consumer Expenditure Survey. An aged couple with both spouses drawing Social Security receives about $3,208 a month in 2026. The gap between those two figures is the number worth planning around.
The base layer
What a couple receives from Social Security
Social Security is the floor almost every retired couple stands on. The Social Security Administration estimates that an aged couple with both spouses receiving benefits gets $3,208 a month in January 2026, after the 2.8 percent cost-of-living adjustment. That is $38,496 a year before anything else.
Swipe sideways for the full table →
| Social Security, 2026 | Per month | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| Average retired worker | $2,071 | $24,852 |
| Aged couple, both receiving benefits | $3,208 | $38,496 |
| Maximum, retiring at full retirement age | $4,152 | $49,824 |
| Two maximum benefits, one couple | $8,304 | $99,648 |
Source: Social Security Administration, 2026 COLA Fact Sheet — estimated average monthly benefits payable January 2026, data year 2026
Read the last two rows as a ceiling, not a target. The maximum requires a full career of earnings at or above the taxable maximum and claiming exactly at full retirement age, which very few people do. The actual average retired-worker benefit in SSA's June 2026 monthly snapshot was $2,084.40 — close to the January estimate, and a long way below the maximum.
One feature of this layer is worth naming, because nothing else in a retirement plan has it: the benefit is adjusted for inflation every year and it does not stop while you are alive. Whatever you build on top has to be judged against a base that already does both.
Averages, carefully
Average retirement income versus median
The median household headed by someone 65 or over had an income of $56,680 in 2024, about $4,723 a month. The average is higher, because a small number of very high incomes pull it up. When an article quotes a big number for retirement income, check which of the two it is.
Swipe sideways for the full table →
| Household income, 2024 | Per year | Per month |
|---|---|---|
| Median, householder 65 or over | $56,680 | $4,723 |
| Median, householder under 65 | $97,030 | $8,086 |
| Median, all households | $83,730 | $6,978 |
| Average income before taxes, 65 or over | $67,462 | $5,622 |
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, Income in the United States: 2024 (P60-286, Table A-1), income year 2024; last row, Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey, 2024
The gap between the top row and the second is the real story of retirement income. Median household income falls by roughly two fifths at 65, from $97,030 to $56,680. Spending falls too, but not by as much, which is why the years just after retiring are the ones people find tightest.
Two cautions on the definitions. The Census figures are households, which include people living alone, so a couple should read them as a low benchmark. The last row comes from a different survey with a different unit, so read it as a sense of scale rather than a like-for-like comparison.
The number that decides it
What retired households actually spend
Income only means something against spending. In the 2024 Consumer Expenditure Survey, households whose reference person is 65 or over spent $61,432 a year, or $5,119 a month. Every household in the United States averaged $78,535, so retirement cuts total spending by roughly a fifth.
Swipe sideways for the full table →
| Spending at 65 or over, 2024 | Per year | Per month | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Housing | $22,193 | $1,849 | 36.1% |
| Transportation | $9,538 | $795 | 15.5% |
| Food | $7,940 | $662 | 12.9% |
| Healthcare | $7,799 | $650 | 12.7% |
| Personal insurance and pensions | $3,480 | $290 | 5.7% |
| Cash contributions | $3,158 | $263 | 5.1% |
| Entertainment | $3,025 | $252 | 4.9% |
| Apparel and services | $1,198 | $100 | 2.0% |
| Everything else | $3,101 | $258 | 5.0% |
| Total | $61,432 | $5,119 | 100.0% |
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Expenditure Survey — average annual expenditures by age of reference person, data year 2024
Housing is the single largest line and the one most within your control before you retire. Healthcare is real but smaller than its reputation at this level of detail, because Medicare carries much of it; what the average conceals is that a bad health year is far above the average and arrives without notice.
Spending also declines with age. Households aged 65 to 74 spent $5,446 a month in 2024, and those 75 and over spent $4,653. Planning a single flat figure for a thirty-year retirement overstates the later years and can understate the first ten.
The honest answer
So what counts as a good number?
Put the two published figures side by side. The average household 65 or over spends $5,119 a month. An aged couple both drawing Social Security receives $3,208. The difference is about $1,911 a month, and that is the shape of the problem for a typical couple.
That subtraction is arithmetic on two national statistics, not a forecast for anyone in particular. The two surveys count slightly different populations — Social Security measures a couple, while the spending figure covers all households 65 or over, including people living alone. Read the result as a direction and a rough scale, then replace both numbers with your own.
On that basis, a defensible working target for a couple is at least the $5,119 the average household 65 or over spends, and nearer the $5,446 that households aged 65 to 74 spend, since the first decade of retirement is the expensive one. Three things move it more than any national average: whether the mortgage is gone, what health cover costs before Medicare starts, and whether anyone else depends on you.
Geography
Median monthly income at 65 or over, by state
There is no published figure for average monthly retirement income by state. The closest published measure is median household income where the householder is 65 or over, which is what this table shows. Nationally that is $58,390 a year, about $4,866 a month. By state it runs from $3,609 a month in Mississippi to $7,279 in Hawaii — a much wider spread than Social Security alone.
What this table is not: these are all households headed by someone 65 or over, including the many still earning wages. It is a measure of what older households live on, not of what retirees receive. The figures are American Community Survey 5-Year estimates covering 2020 to 2024 in 2024 dollars — a five-year window, not a single year.
| State | Per year | Per month |
|---|---|---|
| United States | $58,390 | $4,866 |
| Alabama | $49,014 | $4,085 |
| Alaska | $71,650 | $5,971 |
| Arizona | $61,054 | $5,088 |
| Arkansas | $45,887 | $3,824 |
| California | $71,089 | $5,924 |
| Colorado | $67,371 | $5,614 |
| Connecticut | $69,492 | $5,791 |
| Delaware | $68,198 | $5,683 |
| District of Columbia | $70,184 | $5,849 |
| Florida | $57,397 | $4,783 |
| Georgia | $55,022 | $4,585 |
| Hawaii | $87,344 | $7,279 |
| Idaho | $58,461 | $4,872 |
| Illinois | $59,361 | $4,947 |
| Indiana | $52,461 | $4,372 |
| Iowa | $55,083 | $4,590 |
| Kansas | $56,822 | $4,735 |
| Kentucky | $46,908 | $3,909 |
| Louisiana | $46,093 | $3,841 |
| Maine | $54,559 | $4,547 |
| Maryland | $74,992 | $6,249 |
| Massachusetts | $66,336 | $5,528 |
| Michigan | $55,014 | $4,585 |
| Minnesota | $60,491 | $5,041 |
| Mississippi | $43,306 | $3,609 |
| Missouri | $52,285 | $4,357 |
| Montana | $55,214 | $4,601 |
| Nebraska | $56,015 | $4,668 |
| Nevada | $60,766 | $5,064 |
| New Hampshire | $65,689 | $5,474 |
| New Jersey | $70,763 | $5,897 |
| New Mexico | $53,098 | $4,425 |
| New York | $59,616 | $4,968 |
| North Carolina | $53,003 | $4,417 |
| North Dakota | $55,526 | $4,627 |
| Ohio | $52,515 | $4,376 |
| Oklahoma | $53,058 | $4,422 |
| Oregon | $61,155 | $5,096 |
| Pennsylvania | $54,867 | $4,572 |
| Rhode Island | $61,049 | $5,087 |
| South Carolina | $53,541 | $4,462 |
| South Dakota | $55,181 | $4,598 |
| Tennessee | $51,886 | $4,324 |
| Texas | $56,912 | $4,743 |
| Utah | $69,005 | $5,750 |
| Vermont | $58,664 | $4,889 |
| Virginia | $66,103 | $5,509 |
| Washington | $67,096 | $5,591 |
| West Virginia | $45,766 | $3,814 |
| Wisconsin | $56,488 | $4,707 |
| Wyoming | $58,468 | $4,872 |
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 5-Year estimates, 2020–2024, table B19049, median household income by age of householder
Social Security itself varies far less than that. Counted separately, on SSA's own December 2024 state figures, the average retired-worker benefit runs from about $1,814 a month in Mississippi to $2,196 in Connecticut, a spread of roughly 20 percent. The benefit formula is federal and identical everywhere, so that gap is lifetime earnings, not state policy. Keep the two measures apart: they count different populations in different years.
The wider spread in the table is therefore about everything other than Social Security — pensions, savings, property, and how many people in each state are still working at 65. Cost of living moves in the same direction, which is why the state question is really a spending question. Your own housing cost, property tax and health cover settle it, and no state median can.
Benefit spread derived from SSA, OASDI Beneficiaries by State and County, 2024, Tables 2 and 3 — total retired-worker benefits divided by retired-worker beneficiaries, December 2024
Next step
Closing the gap between what you will have and what you want
The useful version of this question is personal, and it is one subtraction: your target monthly income, minus the income you already expect. What is left is your gap. Sizing it is the whole exercise, because a gap you can name is a gap you can work on.
The income gap calculator does exactly that subtraction, then shows the capital it would take to produce the shortfall at a range of estimated yields. It is arithmetic on numbers you type, not a plan and not advice.
There are only four levers on the answer, and it is worth being honest about all of them. Spend less. Work longer, or claim Social Security later, which permanently raises the base. Save more before you stop. Or put existing capital into something that produces income — which is where the choice among investments that pay monthly income starts, from insured deposits and CD ladders through bonds and dividends to immediate annuities and court-approved payment streams.
Each of those carries a different risk, and none of them is interchangeable with the others. Pacific Structured Assets places one of them — court-approved secondary-market payment streams — and it is a long-horizon holding, not a bank deposit and not FDIC-insured. Anyone whose gap is short-term should look at the insured end of that list first, and everyone should compare several before committing.
Not advice: Pacific Structured Assets does not provide investment, tax, legal or accounting advice, and nothing on this page is a recommendation about your own retirement. The figures here are published national statistics, shown with their source and data year so you can check them. Your own plan needs your own numbers and your own advisors.
Retirement income questions
What is a good monthly retirement income for a couple?
What is the average retirement income for a couple?
What is the average monthly Social Security benefit in 2026?
How much do retired households spend each month?
Does retirement income vary a lot by state?
Can a couple live on Social Security alone?
Pacific Structured Assets, Inc. does not provide tax, legal, financial or accounting advice. The material on this website has been prepared for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for, tax, legal, financial or accounting advice. You should consult your own tax, legal, financial or accounting advisors before engaging in any transaction, including the acquisition of factored structured settlement payments. Pacific Structured Assets is not registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission and is not licensed to sell insurance in any state.
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