Suze Orman Says Retiring at 65 Is Risky — Here’s What She’s Missing About Retirement Income

Is Suze Orman right that retiring at 65 is risky?

Yes, and Robert says so up front. The Employee Benefit Research Institute’s 2026 Retirement Confidence Survey found that most workers plan to retire at 65, and the median worker retires at 62, three years earlier. EBRI’s Craig Copeland describes it as something that happens to one in two people, while most people assume they will be the one who gets to work longer. For your own retirement date, that is a coin flip. Orman’s remedy is to pay off the mortgage before you retire and push catch-up contributions hard in your 50s. Robert gives clients the same advice.

What are the catch-up contribution limits for 2026?

The IRS limits for 2026 let you put $32,500 into a 401(k) at 50 or older, and $35,750 if you are 60 to 63. IRA contributions go up to $8,600 with the catch-up. Make those contributions. Robert’s point is what they share: each one prepares you for a last paycheck that arrives early. None of them tells you what your money produces on its own, which is the number that decides whether you sleep at night.

What question should you ask instead?

Robert asks couples to move from “When will we retire?” to “What does our money produce?” Your employer may answer the first question for you. You answer the second, and it covers your Social Security claiming strategy, your withdrawal order, your tax exposure, and the Roth conversion windows you use in your final working years. If you are under 65, it also covers how you would bridge the gap to Medicare if the paycheck stopped tomorrow. Orman’s framing assumes the risk shows up on the date you planned. You seldom get to pick your early date, so the plan has to work on any date.

What happened to Gary and Diane?

Robert describes a couple he worked with, whom he calls Gary and Diane. Gary spent 28 years in corporate finance, earned a good salary and never missed a contribution. Their plan had him working to 66. At 61, his company restructured and eliminated his division, years ahead of the date their plan assumed. Gary panicked for about three weeks. Then the two of them sat down with their real numbers: a paid-off house, a $680,000 portfolio paying about $2,700 a month in dividends, and a Social Security benefit he had not claimed yet, growing each year he waited. They had enough. Diane told Robert the hardest part was the fear in that first week that the money might not be there, and having the answer in hand turned three weeks of panic into a plan.

What does income above the floor look like?

Robert works an illustration. A couple with $500,000 in a dividend-focused portfolio yielding 5% draws $25,000 a year, a little over $2,000 a month. Add an average Social Security check, which he puts at about $2,100 a month from Social Security Administration figures, and the couple is close to $50,000 a year, in the range he says an average retired household spends. A $1 million portfolio on the same terms produces about $50,000 a year before Social Security. These figures are illustrations: yields change, and your own number depends on your spending, your claiming ages, your withdrawal order and your taxes.

He compares the two jobs to a mechanic and a navigator. The mechanic keeps the car running, the way an investment manager runs a portfolio. The navigator tells you whether you have the fuel to reach the destination you picked. Most people hire the mechanic alone.

What should the two of you work out now?

Your number: what your combined accounts need to produce, when each of you should start Social Security and how your withdrawals should be sequenced. With that answer in hand, it matters less whether you are forced out at 62, choose to leave at 58 or keep working to 70 because you enjoy the work. Robert’s 30-minute retirement clarity call maps where you stand.