American households are increasingly tapping their investment portfolios to cover everyday expenses, with such transfers now funding nearly 7% of total consumer spending—double the rate seen before the pandemic. That is the central finding of a new report from the JPMorganChase Institute, which analyzed de-identified checking account data from over 20 million Chase customers between 2015 and 2026.
The report, released in September 2026, shows that transfers from investment accounts into checking accounts rose from the equivalent of 3.5% of total consumer spending in April 2019 to 6.8% in April 2026. In 2015, that figure was just 2.3%. The authors—Chris Wheat, president of the JPMorganChase Institute; George Eckerd, wealth and markets research director; and Melissa O'Brien, research vice president—noted that the share of people making net withdrawals from their investment accounts has doubled since 2019.
The trend reflects a broader shift in household balance sheets. According to Federal Reserve Financial Accounts data cited in the report, stock market holdings now account for nearly one-third of total U.S. household assets as of the first quarter of 2026, roughly double their share at the start of the 2010s. This growing reliance on market-linked wealth makes consumer spending more sensitive to equity performance than in prior decades.
Retirees and high earners lead the drawdown
Among individuals aged 65 and older in the top income segment, the share making net investment withdrawals rose 13 percentage points to 37% between 2019 and 2025. For that same cohort, investment inflows now represent 15% of annual spending, up 7 percentage points from 2019. High-income individuals across all age groups showed the sharpest increases, with the share of spending funded by investment withdrawals exceeding 10% every month of 2026, up from an average below 4% in 2015.
The pattern is consistent with the ongoing shift from defined-benefit pension plans to defined-contribution accounts. Access to defined-benefit plans among private sector employees fell from 30.1% in 1984 to 11.1% in 2023, while access to defined-contribution plans rose from 12.0% to 47.7% over the same period, according to the Congressional Research Service. That shift places a growing share of retirement income decisions—and market risk—directly in the hands of individuals and their advisors.
Younger investors also tapping portfolios
The trend is not limited to retirees. Among top earners aged 25 to 44, nearly one in four made net withdrawals from investment accounts in 2025, with those flows accounting for approximately 7% of that group's spending. Even among lower-income adults aged 25 to 44, the share tapping investments doubled, rising to 7% from a low base. At the same time, the share of younger people actively adding money to investment accounts also rose, with net deposits among those aged 25 to 44 nearly doubling from 8.5% in 2019 to 16.6% in 2025.
This dual trend—younger cohorts accumulating and older ones spending down—reflects the classic life-cycle pattern, but at greater scale and speed. For financial advisors, the growing emphasis on retirement planning and decumulation strategies is becoming increasingly critical, as clients seek to translate accumulated assets into sustainable income.
Market sensitivity and economic implications
The JPMorganChase Institute data also revealed a direct correlation between stock market performance and withdrawal behavior. The upward trend in investment drawdowns was interrupted three times: during the COVID-19 selloff of February–March 2020, the sustained equity decline of January–October 2022, and the market downturn of January–April 2025. Each dip in equity prices corresponded with a pullback in the share of households moving money from portfolios to checking accounts.
That sensitivity has broader economic consequences. The aggregate personal savings rate in the U.S. fell to 3.0% as of May 2026, near multi-decade lows, according to the Federal Reserve's FRED database, down from an average above 7% in 2019. The JPMorganChase Institute researchers describe the decline as consistent with households sustaining spending by pulling from investment assets rather than earned income alone.
The report's authors suggest the link between financial markets and the real economy may now be stronger than at any prior point, meaning market volatility could transmit more directly to consumer spending than policymakers and advisors have historically assumed. "A larger share of spending and retirement security is a function of market performance and financial discipline," they concluded.
For advisors, the findings underscore the importance of managing sequence-of-returns risk—the danger that early market losses permanently impair a portfolio's ability to fund withdrawals. As more clients rely on investment accounts as a primary spending source, the need for robust retirement income planning grows. The current policy agenda may amplify the trend, with proposed expansions of tax-advantaged investment programs such as Trump Accounts and Trump IRAs joining a pattern that already has significant momentum in household financial behavior.
