Retirement

The Surprising Facts About Retirement Income

2 min read
May 16, 2025

Retirement can be an exciting new chapter in life with some surprising twists and turns. As much as you plan for it, you might face some unexpected situations and you want to be financially ready when the time comes. It’s important to think about how much income you’ll need for everyday expenses and those unplanned events in retirement. Your monthly expenses may also include medical expenses or long-term care.

Here are some surprising facts you might not know:

Surprising facts about retirement
Surprising facts about retirement

How to prepare for retirement’s surprises

  1. Calculate how much monthly income you’ll need in retirement and develop a retirement strategy.
  2. Incrementally increase your contributions every year to your employer-sponsored retirement plan or retirement savings.
  3. Use catch–up contributions, bonuses and salary increases to help boost your annual retirement contributions.
  4. Consider a guaranteed lifetime income solution, so that you have a reliable source of income that you can’t outlive.

Though retirement might be full of surprises, you can be prepared by taking the right steps now. Make sure that you consider all the options offered to you by your employer and other financial resources. This will allow you to build a retirement strategy that will help you live the comfortable retirement you deserve.

Will you have enough income in retirement?

Use MetLife’s interactive tool to discover if you have a retirement income gap—the difference between your anticipated retirement income and estimated monthly expenses.

Learn More

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