What the model assumes about the United States

This page collects every United States-specific number the model starts from: when the state pension begins and how it behaves, what healthcare and long-term care cost, what a retired household spends, and how tax is worked out. The planner prefills each of them, and you can change any of them during setup. Amounts are in USD at today's prices, and the same data files drive the simulation itself, so a figure you read here is the figure your plan runs on.

The state pension

Starts at 67. The planner uses this both as your default retirement age and as the start age of your state pension.

Source: US Social Security Administration (2026). See it.

With inflation. Social Security benefits get an automatic cost of living raise each January, tied to the change in consumer prices over the previous year. Payments keep pace with inflation but are not designed to rise faster than it.

Source: US Social Security Administration (2026). See it.

What a surviving partner keeps: keeps the larger of the two pensions. Social Security pays a surviving spouse the higher of their own benefit or the deceased partner's benefit, not both. If your own benefit is already the larger one, your payment does not change.

Source: Social Security Administration (2026). See it.

How the simulation pays and raises pensions: the income section of the technical reference. What changes at the first death: the couples section.

Healthcare

$5,511 a year for each person, at 65. Health spending outside long-term care: visits, medicines, glasses, dental work and any premiums you pay yourself. The planner starts from this figure and moves it as you age. The source published $7,715. The published figure counts a whole household, so we divided it down to one person.

Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics (2024). See it.

How the model ages this figure: the expenses section of the technical reference.

Long-term care

$129,575 a year out of your own pocket if you need residential care. You pay the full price until your savings run down far enough to qualify for help.

Source: Genworth Financial / CareScout (2025). See it.

The model does not add the whole charge on top of your budget: the groceries, and for renters the housing, that a care home replaces are credited back. How the care model works.

What a retired household spends

$1,489 + $611/mo for one person, $2,686 + $1,283/mo for a couple. Essential spending plus everything-else spending, each month, excluding housing and healthcare, which the planner asks about separately. The prefills come from BLS Consumer Expenditure Surveys, cross-tabulated Table 3600 (consumer units of one person by age of reference person) and Table 3620 (consumer units of two people by age), '65 years and older' column, 2023-2024 two-year average.

Source: BLS Consumer Expenditure Surveys, cross-tabulated Table 3600 (consumer units of one person by age of reference person) and Table 3620 (consumer units of two people by age), '65 years and older' column, 2023-2024 two-year average (2026). See it.

What each budget covers and how spending changes with age: the expenses section of the technical reference.

Tax

The model recalculates your tax bill for every simulated year, using United States's own scales, allowances and thresholds for the 2026 tax year, last read on 2026-07-27. The answers are checked against their calculator. Couples are assessed together where the rules allow it.

How United States taxes a retirement plan lists every figure, the tax office page each one came from, and everything the model does not do there.

Everything we read

Every publication behind the pension, care, healthcare and budget figures above. The tax page carries its own references, one per figure.