It's interesting to assess how your retirement savings compare to others in your bracket, which can give you insight into how well you're prepared for retirement. Important aspects to consider are overall retirement account balances and how much of your regular income you allocate towards retirement, particularly if retirement is some years away.
Setting up automated contributions to your retirement accounts can be beneficial as it helps leverage compounding returns, adopts a dollar-cost averaging strategy for investing, and optimizes potential employer contribution matches, amongst other things. It's also crucial to be aware of the annual contribution limits set by the IRS. For 2025, these have been set at $23,500 for most 401(k) account holders and $7,000 for individual retirement accounts (IRAs).
Insights gathered from Fidelity data, which encompassed about 25 million retirement plan participants, revealed that across the generations – Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z – the average employee 401(k) contribution was high enough to secure most employer matches.
Baby Boomers saved the highest percentage of their income at 11.9%, followed by Gen X at 10.2%, Millennials at 8.7%, and Gen Z at 7.2%. The average employer 401(k) contributions were also significant, standing at 5.0% each for Baby Boomers and Gen X, and slightly lower for Millennials and Gen Z at 4.6% and 3.7% respectively.
When looking at 401(k) balances, the longer a generation has been in the workforce and thus had time to contribute to their retirement account, the higher the average 401(k) balance. Baby Boomers topped the list at $249,300, with Gen X following at $192,300, Millennials at $67,300, and Gen Z at $13,500.
The growth in retirement saving has been promising, with nearly 40% of savers having increased their contribution rate in 2024, by an average of 2.9% overall.
Savers also contribute to non-401(k) accounts like the Roth 401(k)s. Around 12.2% of Baby Boomers, 14.5% of Gen X, 18.3% of Millennials, and 18.2% of Gen Z retirement savers contribute to a Roth 401(k).
IRAs also attract significant contributions from retirement savers. Fidelity's data shows that the average IRA contribution in Q2 2025 was $2,200, with average IRA balances rising to $131,400 mid-2025 from $125,200 the previous year.
Finally, average IRA balances across generations showed a similar pattern to 401(k) balances. By the end of 2024, Boomers had $257,002 in their IRAs, Gen Xers had $103,952, Millennials stood at $25,109 on average, and Gen Z at $6,672.