Are you on track for retirement? Here’s how to check

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The investing information provided on this page is for educational purposes only. NerdWallet, Inc. does not offer advisory or brokerage services, nor does it recommend or advise investors to buy or sell particular stocks, securities or other investments.Whether leaving the workforce is just around the corner or decades away, it’s always a good time to consider: Are you financially on track to retire?

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A NerdWallet survey, conducted online by The Harris Poll in October 2024, found that just 23% of Americans had evaluated their progress toward retirement savings goals in the prior 12 months. To check in on how you’re doing, the first step is likely figuring out what number you’re aiming for.

Set your retirement goal

It may be tempting to measure your retirement savings against other people your age, but like many financial goals, this one is personal. How much money you need in retirement depends on factors like the cost of living in the place you hope to retire, whether there are loved ones to support and how you plan to spend your golden years. A good question to ask yourself is “how much money do I need to retire the way I want to?”

There are many unknowns between now and 20, 30 or 40 years in the future. But a good starting point is calculating how much you’ll need in retirement income. This involves looking at your current expenses, deciding which ones will increase or decrease by the time you retire, and then adding in any additional spending you plan to do once you leave the workforce.

If you’d rather use a general rule of thumb to calculate, you might assume you’ll need between 70% and 90% of your current income in retirement. Most people don’t need as much money in retirement to continue their current lifestyle because they’re no longer saving for retirement, nor are they paying payroll taxes or other work-related expenses.

Calculate how much you need to save

With an idea of how much you’ll need in retirement, use a retirement calculator to determine if you’re saving enough to hit that goal. In the calculator, input your age, current savings, monthly contributions and monthly retirement budget. You can also adjust factors like retirement age, rate of return, life expectancy and expectations around raises and inflation.

If your existing retirement savings and monthly contributions won’t get you to your savings goal, adjust your contributions in the calculator to see how much more you need to save. Keep in mind, this is a ballpark estimate and planning for future unknowns is difficult. But having a target retirement income and knowing what it takes to get there makes your progress measurable. Plus, this goal can be adjusted as you get closer to retirement age.

Start increasing your savings, if needed, to hit your goals

Just a quarter of Americans (25%) had taken steps to increase their retirement savings in the prior 12 months, according to the survey. If the calculator exercise showed that your existing savings and contributions are on track, great! Carry on. But if you need to start saving more, consider:

Setting up automatic contribution increases. Some retirement accounts allow you to set up annual increases. So for example, you could set up your 401(k) contributions to automatically go up by 1% each year. (Depending on your plan and the size of the company you work for, this may be done for you automatically, if you don’t opt out.) Over time, this could make a big difference, even if the change seems small.

Let’s say your salary is $50,000 and you’re currently contributing 10%, or $5,000 a year. It may not seem like a big win to increase that to 11%, or $5,500 a year, but that extra $500 in annual contributions could be worth more than $49,000 in 30 years at a 7% return. And that’s assuming you don’t continue increasing your contributions each year.

Saving your raises. If you can do without it, invest your next raise for retirement. This could mean increasing your 401(k) or 403(b) contribution, or putting the extra funds into a Roth IRA. Don’t want to save all of it? Put a portion of it away instead. Every little bit helps.

Evaluating your spending and debt payoff. Track your spending for a few months and then examine if there’s anything you could reasonably reduce or cut out to free up more money to invest.

As for debt payoff, if you’re aggressively paying off low interest debt — such as that with interest rates below 5% — it might be worth considering whether some of that extra money is better off saved for retirement while you slow down debt payoff progress. Ideally, you should aim to work on several important financial goals, like investing for retirement, saving up an emergency fund and paying off debt, simultaneously, to get all of your financial ducks in a row. At the very least, make sure you’re contributing enough to get the company match on your retirement funds, before allocating more money toward low-interest debt.

The complete survey methodology is available in the original article, published at NerdWallet.

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Erin El Issa writes for NerdWallet. Email: erin@nerdwallet.com.

The article Are you on track for retirement? Here’s how to check originally appeared on NerdWallet.

China sticks to an economic growth target of ‘around 5%’ despite a looming trade war with US

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By SIMINA MISTREANU and KEN MORITSUGU

BEIJING (AP) — The Chinese government unveiled an annual economic growth target of “around 5%” on Wednesday, despite the possible negative impact of a looming trade war with the United States, and pledged to address what it called “sluggish” consumer spending at home.

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The target was announced at the opening session of the annual meeting of China’s legislature. It’s the same as for the last two years but will likely be more difficult to achieve because of the new, higher U.S. tariffs on Chinese products and other economic headwinds. The use of “around” gives the government some room if growth falls short.

The target signals the government’s intention to try to stabilize growth in challenging economic times but hold back on more dramatic action that some economists say is needed to supercharge it.

The government also said in a draft budget released Wednesday that defense spending would rise 7.2% this year to 1.78 trillion yuan ($245 billion), second only to the United States.

It released the growth target in a separate report, parts of which were presented to the nearly 3,000 members of the National People’s Congress by Premier Li Qiang. It acknowledged both international and domestic challenges.

“An increasingly complex and severe external environment may exert a greater impact on China in areas such as trade, science, and technology,” the report said, without specifics. “Unilateralism and protectionism are on the rise.”

It added: “Domestically, the foundation for China’s sustained economic recovery and growth is not strong enough. Effective demand is weak, and consumption, in particular, is sluggish.”

The International Monetary Fund has projected that China’s economy will grow 4.6% this year, down from 5% in 2024, according to Chinese government statistics.

The new report placed more emphasis on reviving domestic demand and consumption than last year’s, echoing a shift by the ruling Communist Party at meetings in December. It said the government should “make domestic demand the main engine and anchor of economic growth.”

The report added that “achieving this year’s targets will not be easy, and we must make arduous efforts to meet them.”

Across-the-board 20% tariffs imposed this week on Chinese products by U.S. President Donald Trump pose the latest threat to an economy already weighed down by a prolonged real estate slump and sluggish consumer spending and private business investment. The tariffs could crimp sales to one of China’s major export markets, making the need to boost domestic demand more urgent.

The new report offered some details on the party’s plans for a “more proactive fiscal policy,” including a rise in the government budget deficit from 3% to 4% of GDP, or the size of the overall economy. It also reiterated the party’s announcement in December that the central bank would shift its monetary policy from “prudent” to “moderately loose” for the first time in more than a decade.

The government will issue 1.3 trillion yuan ($180 billion) in ultra-long term bonds, up from 1 trillion yuan last year, the report said. Of that, 300 billion yuan would go toward a program launched last year that offers rebates to consumers who trade in automobiles or appliances for new ones, doubling central government support for the program.

Economists expressed doubts over whether the policies will do enough, noting that the government reduced its inflation target to 2% from 3% last year, and suggesting leaders have accepted that the economy is still mired in deflation, or a cycle of weakening prices.

The degree of support is “more modest than it may appear,” Julian Evans-Pritchard of Capital Economics said in a report. “We remain skeptical that it will be sufficient to prevent growth from slowing this year, especially given the headwinds on the external front and the lack of a more pronounced shift in government spending toward support for consumption.”

Chinese leader Xi Jinping also wants to wean the economy off its long-running dependence on the highly indebted real estate market.

He is directing economic resources into developing a more innovative, high-tech economy — and with growing restrictions on U.S. technology exports to China, one that isn’t beholden to other countries for the most powerful semiconductors and other electronic components.

Xi told delegates from Jiangsu province, one of China’s wealthier coastal provinces known for exports, on Wednesday that “technological innovation and industrial innovation are the basic paths to developing new quality productivity.”

He also referred to a meeting in February with the heads of China’s top private companies, and said the province should “treat all types of enterprises equally, and continuously optimize the business environment.”

The push towards developing a high-tech economy has been a long-term economic goal of the Communist Party, though it has enacted measures since September that suggest a shift in emphasis toward shoring up growth in the short term.

The new report highlighted artificial intelligence in a section on fostering “industries of the future,” saying the government would support the application of large-scale AI models, smart manufacturing equipment, connected vehicles and intelligent robots.

The Supreme Court confronts a national headache: What to do with the growing pile of nuclear waste

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By MARK SHERMAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday in a fight over plans to store nuclear waste at sites in rural Texas and New Mexico.

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President Joe Biden’s administration and a private company with a license for the Texas facility appealed a ruling by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that found that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission exceeded its authority in granting the license. The outcome of the case will affect plans for a similar facility in New Mexico roughly 40 miles (65 kilometers) away.

On this issue, President Donald Trump’s administration is sticking with the views of its predecessor, even with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican ally of Trump, on the other side.

The push for temporary storage sites is part of the complicated politics of the nation’s so far futile quest for a permanent underground storage facility.

Here’s what to know about the case:

Where is spent nuclear fuel stored now?

Roughly 100,000 tons (90,000 metric tons) of spent fuel, some of it dating from the 1980s, is piling up at current and former nuclear plant sites nationwide and growing by more than 2,000 tons (1,800 metric tons) a year. The waste was meant to be kept there temporarily before being deposited deep underground.

A plan to build a national storage facility northwest of Las Vegas at Yucca Mountain has been mothballed because of staunch opposition from most Nevada residents and officials.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has said that the temporary storage sites are needed because existing nuclear plants are running out of room. The presence of the spent fuel also complicates plans to decommission some plants, the Justice Department said in court papers.

Where would it go?

The NRC granted the Texas license to Interim Storage Partners LLC for a facility that could take up to 5,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel rods from power plants and 231 million tons of other radioactive waste. The facility would be built next to an existing dump site in Andrews County for low-level waste such as protective clothing and other material that has been exposed to radioactivity. The Andrews County site is about 350 miles (560 kilometers) west of Dallas, near the Texas-New Mexico state line.

The New Mexico facility would be in Lea County, in the southeastern part of the state near Carlsbad. The NRC gave a license for the site to Holtec International.

The licenses would allow for 40 years of storage, although opponents contend the facilities would be open indefinitely because of the impasse over permanent storage.

Political opposition is bipartisan

Republicans and Democrats, environmental groups and the oil and gas industry all oppose the temporary sites.

Abbott is leading Texas’ opposition to the storage facility. New Mexico Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham also is opposed to the facility planned for her state.

A brief led by Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz on behalf of several lawmakers calls the nuclear waste contemplated for the two facilities an “enticing target for terrorists” and argues it’s too risky to build the facility atop the Permian Basin, the giant oil and natural gas region that straddles Texas and New Mexico.

Elected leaders of communities on the routes the spent fuel likely would take to New Mexico and Texas also are opposed.

What are the issues before the court?

The justices will consider whether, as the NRC argues, the states forfeited their right to object to the licensing decisions because they declined to join in the commission’s proceedings.

Two other federal appeals courts, in Denver and Washington, that weighed the same issue ruled for the agency. Only the 5th Circuit allowed the cases to proceed.

The second issue is whether federal law allows the commission to license temporary storage sites. Opponents are relying on a 2022 Supreme Court decision that held that Congress must act with specificity when it wants to give an agency the authority to regulate on an issue of major national significance. In ruling for Texas, the 5th Circuit agreed that what to do with the nation’s nuclear waste is the sort of “major question” that Congress must speak to directly.

But the Justice Department has argued that the commission has long-standing authority to deal with nuclear waste reaching back to the 1954 Atomic Energy Act.

Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.

Trump administration pauses flow of intelligence to Ukraine that helps on battlefield

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By DAVID KLEPPER and DARLENE SUPERVILLE

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. has paused its intelligence sharing with Ukraine, cutting off the flow of vital information that has helped the war-torn nation target Russian invaders, but Trump administration officials said Wednesday that positive talks between Washington and Kyiv mean it may only be a short suspension.

Information about Russia’s intentions and military movements has been critical to Ukraine’s defense and a strong indication of support from the U.S. and other Western allies. The suspension comes after Trump paused military aid to Ukraine and is another sign of how he has transformed America’s relationship with close allies.

“We have taken a step back and are pausing and reviewing all aspects of this relationship,” national security adviser Mike Waltz said Wednesday.

Comments from top Trump administration officials suggest the decision is part of the broader negotiations between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to negotiate a peace deal with Russia, and that intelligence could begin flowing to Ukraine again soon.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe called the suspension a “pause” and said it came after the disastrous meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy in the Oval Office last week. Ratcliffe said Trump wanted to know that Zelenskyy was serious about peace.

“On the military front and the intelligence front, the pause that allowed that to happen will go away, and I think we’ll work shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine as we have,” Ratcliffe said.

U.S. intelligence assistance is vital for Ukraine to track Russian troop movements and select targets. Ukrainians use the information when operating U.S.-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, and the U.S. Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS.

Intelligence from the U.S. and other allies also helps Ukraine prepare for Russian attacks, and supplied critical information in the war’s early days that allowed Ukraine to thwart Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hopes for a quick victory.

The CIA declined to respond to questions about the change in intelligence sharing.

Ukraine could soon be receiving intelligence from the U.S. once Zelenskyy shows to Trump he is serious about participating in talks on Trump’s terms, Waltz said on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends.”

“I think if we can nail down these negotiations and move towards these negotiations and, in fact, put some confidence building measures on the table, then the president will take a hard look at lifting this pause,” he said. “We have to know that both sides are sincerely negotiating towards a partial, then permanent, peace.”

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The moves by the new administration have dismayed leaders in Europe and Democrats in Washington, who say Trump is depriving a key American ally of assistance they need to fight Russia.

The flow of information to Ukraine has saved lives, U.S. Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top-ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Wednesday.

“The idea that we will now withhold life-saving intelligence from Ukrainians who are fighting and dying is unforgivable,” Himes said.

Officials in Ukraine declined to comment Wednesday on the country’s intelligence sharing relationship with Washington. CIA officials also declined to respond to questions.

It’s unclear whether the American suspension affects the intelligence sharing ties between Ukraine and other Western powers, including four of the Five Eyes, an intelligence sharing coalition of the U.S., Canada, U.K., Australia and New Zealand.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s spokesman, Dave Pares, would not confirm whether the U.K. is still supplying Ukraine with intelligence from the United States.

He said Britain was “will do everything to put Ukraine in the strongest possible position across all aspects of our support, particularly around defense and security, and our position hasn’t changed.”

Associated Press writers Jill Lawless in London, Barry Hatton in Lisbon, Portugal and Illia Novikov in Kyiv contributed to this report.