Approximately 10,000 people turn 65 in the U.S. each day. The average American retires before that benchmark – around the age of 63. The life expectancy for retirees is about 79, which means that the average American will spend 16 years in retirement. Conventional wisdom suggests that a retirement nest egg of about $1 million is needed to make it through retirement without suffering significant declines in living standards, but as indicated by writer Joel Anderson, the purchasing power of that million dollars depends substantially upon where one resides.