Trump said $465,000 in retirement savings is ‘rich.’ Is it?

President Donald Trump holds up an executive order during an event in the Oval Office of the White House on April 30, 2026. Trump signed an order to expand retirement account access for workers. Andrew Harnik | News | President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to expand retirement account access — and said young workers, if they were to save regularly, would be able to amass $465,000 in such accounts by the time they turn 65 years old. "In other words, they'll be rich," Trump said during the signing ceremony. But financial advisors disputed that characterization, saying $465,000 wouldn't necessarily qualify someone as being wealthy in retirement — especially when that nest egg might have to be spread over roughly two or three decades . "There are advantages to these accounts, but I don't believe they are going to make people rich," Barry Glassman, a certified financial planner and founder of Glassman Wealth Services, wrote in an e-mail. "While $465,000 could provide a healthy sum for retirement, with 3% inflation, in 30 years that's equivalent to less than $200,000 today," wrote Glassman, a member of CNBC's Financial Advisor Council . "Again, not a small sum, but certainly does not qualify someone as rich." The average 401(k) investor had a roughly $168,000 account balance at the end of 2025, according to Vanguard Group, an asset manager and retirement plan administrator. The median balance was a bit more than $44,000. …