{"id":12967,"date":"2026-07-21T22:30:35","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T17:30:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=12967"},"modified":"2026-07-21T22:30:35","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T17:30:35","slug":"how-much-wealth-do-you-need-to-thrive-heres-the-breakdown-according-to-new-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=12967","title":{"rendered":"How much wealth do you need to thrive? Here&#8217;s the breakdown, according to new research."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<p>Three in four Americans don&#8217;t have enough wealth to weather financial setbacks and achieve major life milestones, according to a recent\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitute.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Essential-Wealth-ML-v-FINAL-260622.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">report<\/a> from The Aspen Institute, a nonprofit think tank.<\/p>\n<p>About 34.5 million U.S. households fall short of what the group terms its &#8220;essential wealth&#8221; benchmark, which The Aspen Institute defines as having six weeks of take-home pay in savings combined with a high enough net worth to achieve both homeownership and retirement security.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The fact that most households fall short of that, we think, is a signal for a lot of the financial frustrations, the financial nihilism that we&#8217;re seeing nowadays,&#8221; said Steven Brown, director of insights and evidence for the Aspen Institute&#8217;s Financial Security Program. &#8220;People feel like they can&#8217;t get ahead, and that they don&#8217;t have enough.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The widespread lack of financial resiliency may help explain why many Americans remain pessimistic about their financial futures despite signs of economic strength. Unemployment remains low and stocks <span class=\"link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/stock-market-high-nvidia-ai-economic-divide\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\">have surged<\/a><\/span> on AI-driven gains, yet half of adults say the American dream is no longer attainable, according to a recent\u00a0<span class=\"link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/america-at-250-opinion-poll-successes-challenges\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\">CBS News poll<\/a><\/span>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Homeownership feels out of reach for many, with about nine in 10 adults under 40 saying it&#8217;s harder for them to purchase a home than it was for their parents&#8217; generation, according to a June Pew Research <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/short-reads\/2026\/06\/24\/buying-a-home-has-gotten-harder-for-young-adults-in-most-us-metro-areas\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">survey<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Focusing on wealth rather than income provides a clearer picture of what Americans can \u2014 or cannot \u2014 achieve financially, Aspen said. Liquid savings can help a household weather a short-term setback, while owning a home or other assets provides long-term investments that can aid in achieving goals like paying for a child&#8217;s education or retirement.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Wealth is not just a material thing,&#8221; Brown said. &#8220;It gives you this peace of mind, agency, the ability to make decisions and choices.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>How much wealth do I need to thrive?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>As part of its research, Aspen also examined how much a typical household would need across different age groups to meet the &#8220;essential wealth&#8221; threshold. The findings show \u2014 unsurprisingly \u2014 that the amount of money required increases with age.<\/p>\n<p>People under 40 who meet the threshold for essential wealth have enough money to afford a down payment on an entry-level home, Aspen said. The figures for people who are 40 to 49 and 50 to 64 are based on median incomes, and could be higher or lower depending on a household&#8217;s income.<\/p>\n<p>Brown emphasized that the thresholds are a ballpark estimate of what people might need, and that they\u00a0could change depending on income, location and other variables.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A household in California may need a higher number. A household in West Virginia or Mississippi may need a lower number, and so these can vary by place,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>So where do Americans actually stand? Across all age groups, Americans are failing to meet the threshold to achieve lasting financial security. Twenty-nine percent of those aged 65 and older meet the essential wealth criteria, the highest level of any group.<\/p>\n<section class=\"content__body--footer\">\n<p class=\"content__meta--editors\">\n      Edited by<\/p>\n<p>                                  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/team\/aimee-picchi\/\" class=\"byline__author__link\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\">Aimee  Picchi<\/a>\n                      <\/p>\n<\/section>\n<p>  <!-- data-recirc-source=\"queryly\" --><\/p>\n<aside class=\"component list recirculation component--type-recirculation  \">\n        <\/aside>\n<section class=\"content__body--footer\">\n      <!-- tags --><\/p>\n<section class=\"content__tags\">\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section><\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Three in four Americans don&#8217;t have enough wealth to weather financial setbacks and achieve major life milestones, according to a recent\u00a0report from The Aspen Institute, a nonprofit think tank. About 34.5 million U.S. households fall short of what the group terms its &#8220;essential wealth&#8221; benchmark, which The Aspen Institute defines as having six weeks of&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12968,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/assets3.cbsnewsstatic.com\/hub\/i\/r\/2026\/07\/21\/38dfc354-bdff-4deb-8ea4-5bad9ceba04d\/thumbnail\/1200x630\/bc2ead34a54a5b06f5be3dd6f8f7a4c2\/gettyimages-1382292819.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}