If you picture a retired person in an American city, you probably imagine someone who has stepped back from work, is drawing on Social Security and savings, and is managing more or less. The reality, according to a new analysis by The Pew Charitable Trusts, looks quite different for a significant share of older urban residents. In 18 major U.S. cities studied using 2023 census data, older people are poorer than the national average, more likely to still be working, and drawing less from Social Security than their non-urban counterparts. Retirement, for many of them, is not a stage of life. It’s a financial target they haven’t reached.
The Pew analysis covered Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, El Paso, Houston, Jacksonville, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Memphis, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland, San Antonio, San Diego, San Jose, and Tucson, a broad sample of major American cities across different regions and economic profiles. What they found across all 18 was remarkably consistent.
What the numbers actually show
Across all 18 cities, an average of 16.5% of older residents lived below the poverty level, compared with 11.3% nationally. An additional 10.1% in these cities had incomes between 100% and 149% of the poverty level, classified as low income. Taken together, more than a quarter of older residents in these cities were either in poverty or teetering close to it. The national figure for the same combined measure is just under 20%.
The median income for older households across these cities was $51,000, compared with a national median of $56,000 for the same age group. Social Security, which 87% of older households nationally rely on, provided an average of only $22,800 per year in the cities studied, compared with $25,500 nationally. In cities with extremely high costs of living, that gap between income and expenses is the story.
And more older residents are working to fill it. The labor force participation rate for those 65 and older in these cities rose 3.4 percentage points between 2013 and 2023, from 17.3% to 20.7%. In the same period, the national rate rose 2 points. Every city in the analysis saw an increase except Houston, which was essentially flat. By 2023, 15 of the 18 cities had labor force participation rates above the national average for this age group.
Why city retirement is harder
The pressures facing older city residents are not hard to identify. Urban costs of living, rent in particular, run substantially higher than national averages. Housing costs that were manageable on a working income can become overwhelming on a fixed one. Public transit, which many older adults depend on more heavily as driving becomes difficult, varies widely in quality across these cities. And the social infrastructure for aging in place (home care, accessible housing, community support services) is often underfunded in the very cities where demand is highest.
There’s also an income concentration dynamic. While some older city residents are doing very well financially, the Pew analysis makes clear that the median conceals a wide spread. San Jose had the largest gap in median income between older households and all other households in the city: $78,000 for older households versus $136,200 for all households. Detroit had the smallest gap: $35,800 versus $38,100. The city with the most economic dynamism is not necessarily the most comfortable place to age on a fixed income.
What it means for people planning ahead
There’s also a generational timing element worth naming. Many people in their fifties and sixties today built their financial plans around assumptions that no longer hold: that housing costs would be manageable, that Social Security would cover a significant share of living expenses, and that a modest retirement fund would be enough to bridge the gap. In high-cost cities, those assumptions have been strained for years. Wages haven’t kept pace with urban costs of living, and the savings rates that would have been adequate in earlier decades often haven’t been.
I’m not a financial advisor, and none of what follows is financial advice. If you’re making decisions about retirement planning, a certified financial planner is the right person to talk to. But as someone who reads this data as a reflection of how we think about where and how we age, a few things stand out.
The assumption that city residents are financially better positioned than rural or suburban counterparts doesn’t hold up across income levels. Living in a high-cost city is expensive at any age, but the fixed-income reality of retirement makes that especially stark. Social Security was designed to replace a portion of working income, not to cover the cost of urban living in 2025 or beyond.
The rising labor force participation rate among older city residents also tells a story that numbers alone don’t capture. Some of that work is by choice, done by people who want to stay active and engaged. But the Pew analysis makes clear that financial necessity is a major driver. Working into your late sixties or seventies is a different experience when it’s something you’ve chosen versus something you can’t afford to stop.
The bigger picture
The population of older Americans grew by 32.8% between 2013 and 2023, compared with an overall national population growth rate of just 5.9%. That trend is not slowing. More people will age in cities. More will face the gap between what they expected retirement to look like and what it actually costs. And the cities themselves will face growing pressure to support an aging population that, in many cases, does not have the financial cushion to absorb that pressure alone.
None of this is a reason to avoid cities, or to assume the worst. But it is a reason to plan with more specificity than most people do. Retirement has always been unequally distributed. What this analysis makes visible is that geography matters more than many people plan for. The city you love might be the city you eventually can’t afford to retire in. That’s worth knowing before the question becomes urgent.
