What Is the Average Retirement Income in Georgia in 2026?

The average retirement income in Georgia is about $81,700 a year for a household headed by someone 65 or older.

That average counts every dollar arriving at the house, including a paycheck from anyone still working.

The median for the same households is $56,010.

Half of Georgia’s older households take in less than that, and the average is the number that makes headlines.

Note: This is general information, not financial or tax advice. Tax rules, exclusion amounts, and income figures are subject to change.

Average Retirement Income in Georgia

That $81,700 describes a whole household, not a retirement check.

The Census Bureau’s American Community Survey sorts households by the age of the householder, never by whether anyone in the house stopped working.

Many of them still work.

So a spouse on a payroll and an adult child paying rent both feed the same total.

Add up every dollar Georgia’s older households took in during 2024, and the Census total reaches $87.2 billion.

Spread that across 1,067,833 households, and the arithmetic lands at roughly $81,700 apiece.

That’s about one household in four across Georgia.

These are 2024 figures, the newest yearly estimates the Census Bureau has published for the state.

Why the Median Tells You More

Retirement income numbers go wrong the moment somebody swaps an average for a median.

An average adds every household’s income together and divides by the number of households.

A median lines those households up from poorest to richest and takes the household standing in the middle.

Picture five retired neighbors on a street in Macon.

Four of them live on $40,000 a year, and the fifth collects $500,000.

The median for that street is $40,000, while the average comes to $132,000.

Nobody there lives on $132,000.

Georgia’s median household income for a householder 65 or older was $56,010 in 2024, which puts the state’s average 46% above it.

The median for Georgia households of every age was $79,991, so older households come in about $24,000 behind the rest of the state.

When a retirement article quotes one big number and nothing else, it’s usually the average.

Ask for the median.

Social Security’s Share

For many Georgia households in retirement, the largest check of the month comes from Social Security.

The state had 1,559,957 retired workers on the rolls in December 2025, drawing about $3.1 billion a month between them.

Divide the benefits by the workers, and the average retired worker’s check came to $2,018 a month, or about $24,218 across the year.

Every one of those checks grew by 2.8% in January, when the year’s cost-of-living raise took effect.

Social Security put the national average for retired workers at $2,071 a month once that raise reached the checks.

Set Georgia’s average against the state’s $56,010 median, and Social Security covers about 43% of it.

Two checks change that.

A household drawing two benefits covers a bigger piece of its budget from the same source.

Whatever’s left comes from a pension, an IRA or 401(k) withdrawal, a rental property, or a job nobody has given up yet.

How Georgia Taxes Retirement Income

Social Security benefits are exempt from Georgia income tax.

Whatever portion your federal return taxes comes back out on your Georgia return, so the state collects nothing on the benefit.

Then there's the retirement income exclusion, which is the slice of retirement income Georgia lets you subtract before it works out your tax.

It covers pensions, annuities, interest, dividends, rental income, royalties, capital gains, and up to $5,000 of earned income.

Anyone 62 to 64 can exclude up to $35,000 of that income, and at 65 the ceiling rises to $65,000 a person.

Each spouse qualifies separately, so a married couple both 65 or older can keep $130,000 out of the state's reach.

Say a Savannah couple in their late sixties pulls $60,000 from a pension and an IRA, plus $45,000 in Social Security.

Georgia taxes none of it.

Above the exclusion, the state charges a flat 4.99%, the rate Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law in May under House Bill 463.

It has applied to every dollar earned since January 1.

The same bill raises the exclusion to $70,000 in 2027, which is worth knowing before anyone times a large withdrawal.

Our guide to how the state taxes retirement income walks through the filing side.

Retirement Income by County

Retirement income in Georgia changes shape at the county line.

In Fayette County, southwest of Atlanta, the median for households 65 and older is $77,719.

That county is home to Peachtree City, which maintains more than 100 miles of paths for golf carts, walkers, and cyclists.

Ware County, at the northern edge of the Okefenokee Swamp, comes in at $39,008 by the same measure.

Fayette's number is double Ware's.

Fulton County reaches $60,089, and Towns County, up in the mountains around Hiawassee, comes to $55,727.

Those county figures come from the Census Bureau's five-year survey, which pools responses from 2020 through 2024 so it can reach counties too small for a yearly estimate.

Your county changes the tax bill too.

School taxes are usually the largest slice of a Georgia property tax bill, and each county writes its own senior break.

Cobb County exempts homeowners 62 and older from all school taxes, with no income test at all.

The statewide break is far stingier: It knocks $4,000 off at 65 for homeowners whose net income stays under $10,000, not counting Social Security or retirement income.

What That Income Buys

So what does a Georgia retirement income have to cover?

Households headed by someone 65 or older spent an average of $61,432 in 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

That spending figure is an average too, so it carries the same tilt the income average does.

Held against Georgia's $81,700 average, it leaves room.

Held against the $56,010 median, it doesn't.

Georgia is cheaper than the country as a whole.

Goods and services in the state cost 96.3% of the national average in 2024, per the Bureau of Economic Analysis, so that national spending figure works out closer to $59,200 at Georgia registers.

The shortfall shrinks.

It doesn't disappear.

None of those averages include long-term care, and a nursing home room in Georgia can cost more in a year than a typical older household takes in.

FAQ

Quick answers to what Georgians ask most about retirement income.

What is the average retirement income in Georgia?

About $81,700 a year for a household headed by someone 65 or older, based on 2024 Census figures. That average counts all household income, wages included, and the median for the same households is much lower at $56,010.

How much does Social Security pay retirees in Georgia?

Georgia's retired workers averaged about $2,018 a month in December 2025, or roughly $24,218 a year. A 2.8% cost-of-living raise took effect in January 2026, and Social Security put the national average for retired workers at $2,071 a month afterward.

Does Georgia tax retirement income?

Social Security is exempt entirely. Taxpayers 62 to 64 can exclude another $35,000 of retirement income, and those 65 and older can exclude $65,000 each, with anything above that taxed at a flat 4.99%.

Is $60,000 a year enough to retire in Georgia?

A $60,000 retirement income lands above Georgia's median for households 65 and older, and it clears what older households spent on average nationally in 2024 once you adjust for Georgia's lower prices. Housing costs and health care needs swing that answer hard by county.

Do Georgia counties give retirees a property tax break?

Many do, and the terms vary by county. Cobb County drops school taxes completely for homeowners 62 and older, while the statewide exemption knocks $4,000 off at 65 for those under a tight income cap.