Expert insight

The Great Retirement may morph into the Great Sabbatical

June 16, 2022

In 2020‒2021, the pandemic prompted an unexpected 1.6 million retirements
Four bars showing number of retirements each year from 2018 through 2021. The bar for 2020 is almost double that of 2019, and almost half could be attributed to the pandemic in some way. 2021 is closer to pre-pandemic levels, but about half of the retirements can be linked to the pandemic.
Unanticipated retirement puts pressure on income replacement
The horizontal axis represents the amount of wealth from 1 to 12 times that of preretirement income. The  vertical axis represents the age when that wealth can no longer provide 79% of preretirement income in at least 90% of our model simulations. Only the those with 7 times preretirement income or more were able to meet the criteria through age 84.

Contributors

Vanguard Information and Insights

Get Vanguard news, insights, and timely analysis on the market, delivered straight to your inbox.

Read our privacy policy to learn about how we keep personal information private.

* Indicates a required field

Vanguard Information and Insights

Thank you for subscribing to Retirement.

You'll be notified when new content is published, but will only ever receive one email a day from Vanguard Insights.

Vanguard logo

Vanguard is the trusted name in investing. Since our founding in 1975, we've put investors first.