Recently, the 4% retirement income rule has been questioned by some financial advisors as being too aggressive in today’s world. One retired financial advisor who disagrees is William Bengen (pictured), the numbers cruncher who originally came up with the 4% Rule back in 1994.
In a recent interview in Investor’s Business Daily, Bengen says if anything the 4% Rule is too conservative, not too aggressive. Retirees do not need to limit their annual starting withdrawals from retirement savings to 3% to 3.5%, as some financial advisors recommend, he says.
Instead, retirees can safely withdraw up to 4.7% a year without threatening to wipe out their retirement savings before 30 years have elapsed.
The reason so many people think the 4% Rule is out of date is that they overlook its premise, he adds. “When I did the original research, I was looking for the worst possible time to retire,” Bengen told IBD. “That was late 1968, early 1969.” Read the full article.
Is 4% Rule Too High? Rule Inventor Says It Should Be 4.7% Rule
