A worked example · third in the series · income corrected 2026-08-22
A 27% bigger paycheck. The same ending.
This page originally used $72,000/yr for household income, from a secondary source that was never checked against the primary data. Building the 40-year-old profile surfaced the U.S. Census Bureau's own table (HINC-02) — the real 55-64 bracket median is $91,620/yr, 27% higher. Every number below has been re-run through the real account with the correction applied. The outcome barely moves: this household still ends at exactly the same $415,000 floor by 80 — just paid-off home equity — because a bigger paycheck buys a few more years of runway, not a different ending. What does change is the path: the portfolio no longer runs out before retirement even starts. It lasts until 2037-2038, four to five years after the paycheck stops.
Net worth today
Wealth multiple — slightly behind
Cash buffer — shortfall risk
Assets at 80 — the house, and nothing else
Methodology
A fresh bracket, fresh numbers
Same discipline as the other profiles — a named government or industry survey per figure, median over mean where both exist — but this time almost nothing carries over. Income, retirement savings and cash savings all come from the 55-64 bracket specifically, not the 45-54 bracket the 45- and 50-year-old profiles share. Home value, the car loan and Social Security are national or broad-cohort figures that don't change by five-year age bracket, so those stay the same. The mortgage's remaining term continues the same origination-age assumption as before: 5 fewer years for every 5 more years of age (22 → 17 → 12).
| Input | Value used | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Household income | $91,620 / yr | U.S. Census Bureau, CPS ASEC 2025 (2024 income), Table HINC-02 — median household income, householder aged 55–64. Parsed directly from the official spreadsheet (hinc02_1_1.xlsx); corrected from a previously-used $72,000 secondary-source figure. Still a lower bracket than the 45- and 50-year-old profiles' $116,800/yr (45–54), but not the sharp drop the earlier figure implied. |
| Life expectancy | 80 | CDC/NCHS 2024 U.S. life expectancy — same national figure used for the companion profiles |
| Stops working | 62 | Gallup / EBRI, 2025–26 — average age Americans actually retire |
| Claims Social Security | 65 | Social Security Administration — average age retired workers actually start claiming |
| Retirement savings | $185,000 | Federal Reserve Board — official Survey of Consumer Finances data-viz table, median retirement-account balance, families aged 55–64, 2022 |
| Cash savings | $8,000 | Federal Reserve Board — official SCF data-viz table, median transaction-account balance, ages 55–64, 2022 |
| Home value | $415,000 | National Association of Realtors — median existing-home sale price, 2025 |
| Mortgage balance | $230,000 | Modelled as 12 years remaining at 4.5% — 5 fewer than the 50-year-old profile's 17, under the same origination-age assumption |
| Car loan balance | $23,000 | LendingTree — average auto loan balance, Generation X borrowers (ages 45–60), 2025 — the 45-60 cohort still covers age 55 |
| Social Security | $2,083 / mo | Social Security Administration — average retired-worker benefit, 2026 |
Outcome · Cashflow
The 2026 budget
A much bigger salary and the same mortgage payment bring this budget close to balancing — but not quite: Dispono's Budget hub shows $12,958 of this year's income still coming from investment withdrawals, a third of what the incorrect $72,000 figure implied. There's still no "Invested (surplus)" line — this household still enters retirement planning already drawing down savings — but the gap has shrunk by more than half.
- Salary$91,620
- Withdraw Investments$12,958
- Dividends$2,005
- Interest$1,333
- Mortgage$24,840
- Tax$18,324
- Utilities, insurance & property tax$12,000
- Groceries & household$10,800
- Healthcare & insurance$9,000
- Transportation$6,000
- Auto loan (principal)$5,210
- Home maintenance$3,600
- Auto loan (interest)$1,342
- Withdrawal tax$1,296
- Discretionary$16,800
Projected annual income vs. expenses by category, age 55 → 80
There's a faint climb now, where the previous version of this chart had none — the corrected income leaves just enough surplus for the bars to inch upward through 2032. Work stops at the orange line, the "Withdraw Investments" segment (blue) takes over most of the bar, and income disappears entirely for one year in the middle of the gap, before Social Security arrives at the green line. Four real years, in the same category-level detail as 2026:
- Withdraw Investments$81,974
- Salary (partial year)$17,540
- Dividends$1,711
- Mortgage$24,840
- Utilities, insurance & property tax$13,784
- Groceries & household$12,406
- Healthcare & insurance$10,338
- Withdrawal tax$8,197
- Transportation$6,892
- Car payment$6,024
- Home maintenance$4,135
- Tax$3,508
- Discretionary$19,298
Salary ends mid-February, but this time a real withdrawal fills the rest — because unlike the original $72,000 version of this profile, the portfolio still has roughly $370,000 left at this point. The gap is $8,198, not the $86,690 the incorrect figure implied. One year is still genuinely income-free — it's just 2035 now, not 2034:
- No income of any kind this year.
- Mortgage$24,840
- Utilities, insurance & property tax$14,341
- Groceries & household$12,907
- Healthcare & insurance$10,756
- Transportation$7,171
- Car payment$6,267
- Home maintenance$4,302
- Discretionary$20,078
No salary (it ended in 2033), no Social Security (it doesn't start until 2036), and by this point the portfolio genuinely has nothing left to withdraw either — Dispono's own chart shows income at exactly $0. One year later than the original version, but the same wall. Social Security finally arrives in 2036 — as a partial year, and nowhere near enough on its own:
- Social Security (partial year)$27,931
- Mortgage$24,840
- Utilities, insurance & property tax$14,628
- Groceries & household$13,165
- Healthcare & insurance$10,971
- Transportation$7,314
- Car payment$6,392
- Home maintenance$4,388
- Tax$2,793
- Discretionary$20,479
Age 80, for comparison — by now the mortgage is finally gone (the 12-year term ended in 2038):
- Social Security$41,009
- Utilities, insurance & property tax$19,687
- Groceries & household$17,719
- Healthcare & insurance$14,765
- Transportation$9,844
- Car payment$8,603
- Home maintenance$5,906
- Tax$4,101
- Discretionary$27,562
A $41,009 Social Security check against a $108,187 budget — a $67,178 annual gap in the plan's final year, the same size shortfall this household has been carrying, in one form or another, for two decades.
Outcome · Investments
The investment picture
At 55, net worth is $355,000 — higher than the 45- and 50-year-old profiles', because a decade more of compounding on the same savings rate has grown the retirement account further. It buys a few more years than it used to, now that the income figure is correct — but it still won't matter by 80.
- Real estate (home)$415,000
- Equity (401(k))$157,250
- Fixed income (401(k))$27,750
- Cash$8,000
- Debt (mortgage + auto loan)−$253,000
- Mortgage — 4.5%, 12 yrs left−$230,000
- Auto loan — 6.5%, 4 yrs left−$23,000
Projected portfolio composition, age 55 → 80 (baseline scenario)
Outcome · Analysis
What Dispono's risk analysis finds
Most measures here are still worse than the 45- and 50-year-old profiles' — but the corrected income fixes one of them outright: debt-to-income, previously the one rating that read "Critical" and nowhere else in the series, now reads "Manageable," same as the companion profiles.
Thinner than either companion profile — less cash on hand against a tighter monthly budget.
This was the one rating that read "Critical" under the incorrect $72,000 income figure — the corrected $91,620 brings the same $24,840/yr mortgage back down to "Manageable," in line with the companion profiles.
Higher than the companion profiles' 5.5 months in raw terms — a decade more compounding means more liquid savings today — but still well short of target, against a plan that needs it far sooner.
A higher raw multiple than the 45- or 50-year-old profiles' — net worth here is unaffected by the income correction, so this reflects the same larger 401(k) balance as before. The target Dispono expects at 55 (10×–15×) still climbs faster than the multiple does, so it reads "slightly behind" either way.
The house, and nothing else, against the smallest final-year budget of the 45-, 50- and 55-year-old profiles — this one had the fewest years of inflation left to compound.
Similar to the 50-year-old profile's — not because spending is unusually high, but because fixed costs (mortgage especially) leave less room around it.
Income and assets are still projected to outpace inflation over the (much shorter) horizon that matters here.
Stress-testing the plan
Same five scenarios as the companion profiles, same mechanism: once liquid assets hit zero — which now happens here in 2037-2038, several years into retirement rather than before it — nothing can push the ending balance below the house.
| Scenario | What's stressed | Assets at 80 | Multiple | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baseline | Current plan, no changes | $415,000 | 4.0× | |
| Lower returns | Expected return 5% → 3.5% for the full period | $415,000 | 4.0× | |
| Higher inflation | Inflation 2% → 3% for the full period | $415,000 | 3.2× | |
| Crash early | Equity −30% in year one (2026) | $415,000 | 4.0× | |
| Crash mid-way | Equity −30% at age 65 (2036) | $415,000 | 4.0× |
Same pattern as both companion profiles: every scenario floors at $415,000. Higher inflation is the one stress that still moves the multiple, by shrinking it against a bigger final-year budget rather than by reducing the assets — the same mechanism that shows up in every profile in this series.
Key insights
What this profile actually tells you
Four findings, each tested the same way as everything else across this series: by changing the real account and reading the real result.
Finding
Even at the corrected income, this household still can't make ends meet in year one
Salary, dividends and interest bring in $94,958 in 2026 — a real number now, not the $75,338 the incorrect $72,000 figure implied. Against a $109,212 budget, that's still not enough: $12,958 comes out of retirement savings, and the year still closes $1,296 short even after that withdrawal. The gap shrank by more than half, from $28,654 to effectively $14,254 — but the direction didn't change. This is still a today problem, seven years before this household plans to stop working at all.
Finding
The mortgage and the portfolio run out in the same year
At 12 years remaining, this profile's mortgage payment is $24,840 a year — still the single largest recurring expense, and it doesn't clear until 2038. That's the same year the rest of the portfolio hits zero — the same limited cash flow is servicing both for over a decade straight. Debt-to-income now reads "Manageable" (34%) instead of the "Critical" rating the incorrect $72,000 figure produced, but this household is still carrying a home loan deep into a fixed-income retirement.
The limits of a cut
Eliminating discretionary spending entirely still doesn't move the dollar figure
We tested the extreme case: cutting discretionary spending from $1,400 a month to $0 — not a percentage, all of it — starting today. Projected assets at 80 stay at exactly $415,000. The rating improves to "Balanced" only because the cut shrinks that year's budgeted expenses, the ratio's denominator — not because a single extra dollar survives to be spent. For this profile, spending cuts are structurally incapable of closing the gap; the fix has to come from income, fixed costs, or working longer.
Read this as a warning
The "countdown" doesn't hold up once the numbers are right
The uncorrected version of this page fit a clean story: three profiles, same modelling choices, and a depletion date that moved earlier the older the household started. That story doesn't survive the correction. The real depletion dates across all four profiles in this series: 40, 2052–2053 (age 66–67); 45, 2053–2054 (age 72–73); 50, 2043–2044 (age 67–68); 55, now, 2037–2038 (age 66–67) — after retirement and after Social Security starts, not before either. Three of the four run dry within a year of each other by age (66–68); the 45-year-old is the real outlier, with over a decade more compounding runway before its own mortgage and retirement dates land. The same national averages, run at different ages, don't move in a straight line — and neither should the story we tell about them.
Read the whole picture
Three numbers worth remembering
The average 55-year-old American holds more net worth than the 45- or 50-year-old profiles' — $355,000 — and, with the corrected income, a real household income of $91,620, not the $72,000 this page originally used. None of it changes the ending. This household still draws down retirement savings starting in year one, a mortgage sized for an earlier era still eats over a quarter of income, and the portfolio still runs dry — now in 2037–2038, four to five years after retirement, instead of before it even starts. One year, 2035, still runs on exactly $0 of income against a six-figure budget. What's left at 80 is the same floor every profile in this series reaches: the paid-off house, and nothing else — arrived at later than the uncorrected numbers said, but arrived at all the same.
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