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What percentage of Americans who aren't retired cashed out money from a retirement account in the past year?

4% of Americans who aren't retired cashed out money from a retirement account in the past year - about 4 in every 100, or 0 in 10. That is the figure published by the Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking for 2025.

0 in 100100 in 100
4

Where this number comes from

Survey
Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking
What it measured
SHED 2025 item K5A_b (“Cashed out (permanently withdrawn) money from your retirement accounts – In the past 12 months, have you done each of the following?”), counting responses 1=Yes, among adults who do not consider themselves retired (D1I = No). Computed from the Federal Reserve's public-use microdata with its post-stratification weight WEIGHT. The public file has no design variables or replicate weights, so the standard error follows the Fed's documented design effect: SE = √(deff · p(1−p)/n), deff = 1.14 (the Fed's 1.14, or the Kish design effect of these weights if larger); unweighted n = 8,740.
Population
U.S. adults who are not retired
Year
2025
95% confidence interval
3.56% to 4.44% (derived from the published standard error)

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, public-use data (doi:10.17016/datasets.002). Percentages computed here, with attribution.. See the source data

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