For whatever it's worth, and that may not be much for people far below the median, Social Security benefits should replace a larger fraction of income. Then, if you also have $160k, you can draw around $8k/year from your portfolio for at least 30 years, if you use the guardrails approach.

Is this ideal? Of course not.

Is our current societal setup fair to everyone? Absolutely not.

Can someone with $160k survive a devastating medical (or other) event that has a major financial impact? Almost certainly not.

It's just that you and I can't change such national-level problems with what we write here. I'm just trying to share what I learn, from experience or by reading and talking with financial pros, to make things at least a little better for as many people as I can.

And as is the case with all such writings, it's up to the reader to assess if, and to what extent, what you read can offer you anything useful.

I'd just hope that when any reader decides that what I write isn't helpful in his or her particular situation, that he or she doesn't automatically decide that it's useless for almost everyone.