Latest news with #median
News.com.au
5 days ago
- Business
- News.com.au
This is how much super you really should have by now
ANALYSIS Australians spend a lot of time worrying about their super. I'm going to show you the average super balance for someone your age. Then I want you to forget it. Here's the chart, it shows that the average 30 year old has well under $100,000, the average person in the early 40s has just over $100,000, the average person in their early 50s has a bit over $200,000 and the average person over 65 has over $400,000. But this is kinda dumb. Averages are useful for understanding things like height where people are all pretty even. Superannuation is not like height! Instead lots of people have no super, and some people have absolutely crazy amounts of it. Let's check in on the 60-somethings. Remember we said the average amount of super was $400,000? Well here's the thing. The average is not actually a common amount for 60-64 year olds to have. A lot of them have way less than that. But some have way more, as the next chart shows. Each red bar is 5 per cent of taxpayers. So we have 20 groups of 60-64 year olds in the graph, ranked from least super at the left to most super at the right. The top 5 per cent have more than a million dollars in super. We can see the median, or the amount in the middle, where half have more and half have less. I gave that a gold-coloured label on the chart. If your super account contains $177,421 you're at the median. Some important things to know here: this is the latest detailed data out of the ATO but it is not current, it's from 2022. The shape of the balance distribution will be the same but the dollar values will have gone up. Height of red bar represents minimum threshold for entering that group. Which is perfect for understanding how the money is spread out, except for the top group. Inside the top 5% all the balances are higher than $1.176 million, and sometimes far higher. In fact, the distribution inside the top 5% is similarly unequal to the distribution overall. One Australian famously has over $400 million in super!] What's important about this way of laying out the data is it reveals how unequal super is. Most articles about super just lay out the averages by age group and they don't reveal the secret truth: super is a form of wealth that is highly uneven. That can leave people freaking out and worrying they don't have enough. They spend ages stuffing their super accounts when they might actually be better using that money in the here and now. Certainly the superannuation industry would like people to put more and more money in their accounts, they want to create that FOMO feeling! Here's the chart for people in their early 30s. if you've cracked $140,000, you're in the top 5 per cent (remember this data is from 2022, the figure is probably a touch higher now). Many people go through their life feeling like being on the pension is a fate worse than death; they worry everyone else has so much super that the government might shut down the pension any old day now. What these charts hopefully show you is … nah. The pension is going to be with us for a long time. A huge number of Australians have an amount in super that means they will be using the pension at some point after retirement. And the pension is $1585 a fortnight for a couple, $792.50 for a single. If you own a house that's far from a poverty wage. The pension age rose from 65 to 67, it is not scheduled to rise any more. And it is indexed to inflation so its value is maintained. Too much super Is it possible to have too much super? They say you can't be too rich! But certainly some people have enough super that their balance goes up after they retire. Imagine your super makes $100,000 in investment returns every year. If you spend $50,000 a year on groceries and bills, you are spending only half of your earnings and your super balance will rise. Let's see how that looks for groups over retirement age: Over 70, 65 to 69 and 60-64. The next chart is three charts put together. The important thing to notice is that low balances get lower after retirement and high balances get higher. The panel in the left is the oldies – taxpayers over 70. There's loads of them with no super by the time they're over 70. And the median (gold label) is falling as people spend their super. But the super balances of the top 5 per cent are actually rising! Perhaps some are still making contributions but most are just making money faster than they can spend it. This benefits their heirs, who are probably going to get this money in the next 20 years. Most likely it arrives when the heirs are deep into their 50s, and barely moves the needle on their wealth – the sort of people whose parents have millions in super probably have a lot of assets themselves! The last thing I want to do in this piece is share with you guys the whole picture of all the age ranges. The next few charts are like the one above, with three-in one. They cover all the age groups and if you look closely you can figure out where your super balance sits. For example, if you're 22-years-old, you're in the middle chart of this group of three, and if you have $20,000 in super, you're in the second red bar, putting you in the top 10 per cent. But if you have the same amount at 27, that's only the median. The point of this piece has been to hopefully put your mind at ease – the numbers we like to compare ourself to are very high!
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
News 19 Exclusive: Huntsville man concerned about mud runoff from construction site near neighborhood
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WHNT) — Mike Adcock has lived in a house off Holmes Avenue across from where Butler High School used to be for most of his life. Adcock said that sometime in the 1980s, his family made an agreement with the City of Huntsville to take care of the median in front of the house. He recalled the days when his grandmother had a full garden in their patch of land, but now it is just a strip that he enjoys caring for. 📲 to stay updated on the go. 📧 to have news sent to your inbox. However, recently, Adcock said that caring for the median has not been easy because of the mud runoff from the construction site next door. 'They haven't taken care of their mud runoff when it rains,' Adcock said. 'The median that I take care of, that I have to cut, it's full of mud, six to eight inches. Nobody can get a riding or push mower through that.' Adcock claims he contacted the City of Huntsville about the issue, and that some work to address the situation has been done, but he does not feel it has been enough. 'These guys have done a little something, but I don't think it's going to hold up, I really don't,' Adcock said. 'They just kind of put a bandage over the problem. 'Their solution was they are gonna dig a hole,' Adcock said. 'Well, it just fills up with water and mud and that causes a health problem with mosquitoes.' The frustration over the situation continues to boil for Adcock and his neighbors to the point where he said he feels like no one cares. 'I feel like the city has turned their back on me,' Adcock said. 'I'm doing the city a favor, I'm saying the city money because I'm the one that cuts this grass and helps to beautify the city's land. I don't have to do it, I want to do it because this is in front of my house, I want it to look good, I don't want it a concrete jungle like the rest of the ditches or medians in Huntsville.' District 1 City Council member Michelle Watkins told News 19 that she has not received any complaints about the area, but that she would be looking into it. Adcock said that in the end, he just wants the city or the construction company to fix the problem so he can go back to caring for the patch. 'I would like for these guys to control the runoff like what happened on Monte Santo,' Adcock said. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Aussies reveal savings account balance: '$811 to $130,000':
Talking about how much money you've got saved in the bank has long been considered taboo. While some Aussies are being more transparent about their finances, there's still a lot of confusion about what is considered a 'good' amount of savings, and it can be hard to tell if you are on track. To help you know where you stand with your savings, Westpac has revealed the average savings balances of its customers at different ages. This is based on customers with funded and active savings accounts with the bank. Customers aged 30 to 34, for example, had an average savings account balance of $21,394 in their accounts and a median balance of $1,104. The median is generally a better indicator of the average because it isn't skewed by very big or very small numbers. RELATED Landlord with $200,000 cash savings makes Woolworths cost of living admission: 'Even me' Tax, HECS, Medicare: All the major cost-of-living relief coming for millions of Aussies Coles shopper 'flips out' after supermarket accusation as Aussies live with self-serve checkout lie 'The average (or mean) is found by adding up all the numbers and dividing by how many numbers there are. But if there are very large or small numbers, it can give a misleading result,' Westpac explained. 'The median is the middle value when the numbers are arranged from smallest to largest. It can sometimes be a better representation of the data than the average.' The figures can change dramatically as a person ages and they hit different life and savings goals, such as saving for property and travel, or saving up for retirement. Here's how much the average Australian has in savings by age, with both the mean and median amounts listed: 17 and under: $4,769 and $1,135 18 to 24: $13,069 and $2,410 25 to 29: $19,165 and $2,200 30 to 34: $21,394 and $1,104 35 to 44: $29,769 and $811 45 to 54: $52,836 and $1,429 55 to 64: $87,891 and $5,316 65 to 74: $101,004 and $15,829 75 and over: $130,597 and $31,424 While average amounts can be helpful to see where you stand, it's worth remembering that many Aussies have had their savings hit hard by the cost-of-living crisis. Finder's latest Consumer Sentiment tracker found nearly two in five Aussies had less than $1,000 in savings in April. This was a nationally representative survey of more than 60,000 respondents. The group's data found the average Australian had cash savings of $33,345, with men having $42,496 in cash savings and women $23,084. The average cash savings for Baby Boomers was $48,374, Gen X was $39,065, Gen Y was $26,008, and Gen Z was $13,218. Money worries are running high, with 77 per cent reporting feeling stressed with their current financial situation. Generally, you should aim to have an emergency fund that you can use in unexpected financial situations, like your car breaking down or a vet bill. Findex financial adviser Jess Bell said she usually recommends people aim to have three months' worth of income in an emergency fund. 'If you had around three months' worth of income in a savings account or in an offset account, I think that's at least comfortable to provide for emergencies,' she told Yahoo Finance. 'You need to make sure you have emergency funds to provide for those contingencies that just come out of the blue. "It's making sure that you allow for when things go wrong, because they can go wrong.'Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data
