Like many drawn to retirement planning, Meghaan Lurtz, a financial advisor, educator and academic, is as interested in the psychology of saving and investing as she is in the mathematics that make financial planning work.
That is reflected by her diverse experiences in academia and industry, having served as a professor of practice at Kansas State University before helping lead behavioral-finance focused organizations like Shaping Wealth and Beyond the Plan.
Lurtz frequently shares her insights on LinkedIn, where she isn't afraid to kick up a debate now and again. That's what she did Tuesday with a post that has since received more than 60 comments from fellow retirement industry experts.
"Potentially unpopular opinion: The 4% rule has caused more anxiety than it's solved for many clients," Lurtz wrote.
While noting that she "gets why" the rule exists and respects the research upon which it is founded, she fears that people tend to "torture themselves" trying to fit into its strict framework when their situation calls for different thinking.
"Am I off base here?" she asked her fellow practitioners. "Tell me why I'm wrong (or right). … Let's have the real conversation. How does 4% help or hurt? What conversations do clients respond well to?"
The response to the post has been dramatic, with many (but not all) agreeing broadly with her take, including many frequent ThinkAdvisor contributors.
"I think my main concern is that the word 'rule' gets attached to it," wrote Eric Ludwig, director of the Center for Retirement Income and program director for the Retirement Income Certified Professional program at the American College of Financial Services. "But I suppose the original SAFEMAX phrasing doesn't exactly role of the tongue."
That is the term the rule's creator, William Bengen, initially used as shorthand for the "the maximum 'safe' historical withdrawal rate" identified in his landmark research from the mid-1990s.
Lurtz wrote that "language matters" when it comes to converting financial scenarios into actionable insight for retirement savers.
Others came to the defense of the 4% rule, with caveats.
"I think it can give people who have no idea what they should do a starting point," suggested Andi Madden Wrenn, whose work bridges financial planning, leadership coaching and counseling. "From [there] they can determine if higher or lower works for them depending on their investments and lifestyle."
Meg Bartelt, the president of Flow Financial Planning, agreed.
"I don't work with retirees, but I have a handful of *early* retirees, and I agree with this assessment," Bartelt wrote. "When you've got 50-60 years to go, it gives some reasonable framework (though ratcheting that 4% downwards because of the increased time frame) where only uncertain wandering existed before."
One retiree weighed in, noting that any rule of thumb is just a starting place.
"Agree, I'm a client and not a financial planner," the retiree wrote. "The 4% was a reference point when planning my retirement. Now that I'm retired, given life expectancy and assets, my advisor recommended a higher percentage."
That take matches work published in recent years by researchers at Morningstar.
While Morningstar's latest "safe" spending analysis finds that people retiring in 2026 can spend 3.9% of a portfolio annually, if they embrace flexible spending strategies, the safe rate is as high as 6%. The researchers, like many commenters on Lurtz's post, say that a flexible approach is likely more appealing and appropriate for most retirees.
James Matthews, podcaster and director of wealth management at Consolidated Planning, offered a similar take.
"[The 4% rule] makes portfolio survival the objective function of retirement planning and treats consumption as a variable that must be derived based on the portfolio," he explained. "This is entirely improper framing. Consumption is the objective function of retirement and it should govern."
From there, Matthews shared what he thought might be an even more controversial perspective.
"The portfolio withdrawal rate is merely an artifact in this context and is descriptive vs. prescriptive," he concluded. "A really unpopular opinion — much of the effort around the behavioral finance issues related to helping clients with implementation would be unnecessary if financial planning utilized a consistent methodology to address these sorts of issues."
Others pushed back, writing that people who benefit from a target can find prescriptive frameworks to be supportive.
"I believe the challenges come from setting it as an expectation or a measure of success (or failure)," said Saundra Davis, director of financial planning programs at Golden Gate University. "Everyone is different. In my work, we discover what inspires the client. Then we use that to find a measurement that is satisfying, and empowering for them."
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