Are you over the age of 50? Have you socked away six times your annual salary for retirement?

That’s the financial standard one bank is recommending folks follow when planning for life after work. And the average Washington resident is far from meeting it.

The average Washingtonian should have $660,780 in retirement savings by age 50, according to CreditDonkey, a credit card comparison website. That’s six times the median income of those aged 45-60 in the state.

And if you need to play catch-up? Get ready to set aside more than $730 per month, one of the highest monthly amounts needed to be saved to live in any state in retirement.

“The hard part is everyone has a different idea of what retirement looks like, which means everyone has a different magic number needed to retire how they want to,” Ted Cohan, a portfolio manager with Baker Boyer Bank in Kennewick, told the Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business. “That is why we believe having a financial plan for clients is the best way to make sure everyone is saving enough for retirement.”

Inflation, the cost of health care and people living longer means an individual needs to save far more than previous generations to live comfortably once they are no longer working.

Various organizations and agencies have sounded the alarm for years about how financially unprepared many middle-aged U.S. residents are for retirement. An AARP study put the total number of those without sufficient savings at 1 in 5 people, with half saying in a survey that they didn’t feel confident they would have enough to live on throughout retirement.

A more recent study from the RAND Corp. showed that many are in a good position, but certain groups, particularly the unmarried or those with less education, are at risk. The uncertain future of Social Security continuing to provide support is also a factor.

“Under current law, Social Security will only be able to pay scheduled Social Security benefits until about the year 2035,” according to the RAND study. If Social Security benefits were cut by 30%, “economic preparation of singles is reduced by 10.7%. Even among married individuals, preparation falls by 7.8%, suggesting that Social Security plays an important role in securing the economic preparation of all studied groups.”

Cohan said the standard of having six times your salary put away by age 50 is a good starting point, but nothing beats developing your own individualized financial plan for retirement. It’s why he encourages younger people to start saving as soon as they can and not to plan on Social Security being a significant part of their budget.

He also acknowledges that saving for retirement is easier said than done, so start when you can and save when you can.

“…The power of compounding is very powerful,” Cohan said. “So as soon as someone has any earned income, start a traditional or Roth IRA if possible and whenever you have access to a 401(k) or other retirement plan put as much away as can.”