The median retirement savings for 56-61 year olds is $17,000. Here’s a really scary statistic. As mentioned earlier, that the average retirement savings balance for this age group is $163,577. However, the median — meaning that half have more and half have less — is just $17,000. This indicates that the data is being skewed by a relatively small number of super-savers, while the majority of the population is in really bad shape.