Half of America is Single. Most Financial Plans Still Assume Otherwise.

Nearly half (46%) of American adults are single, according to U.S. Census data. A recent Ameriprise Financial study, Flying Solo: Navigating Financial Autonomy, surveyed 3,003 “financially solo” Americans between the ages of 25 and 75 holding an average of more than $700,000 in investable assets. 76% of them expect to remain financially solo long term.

Respondents were single or never married (52%), divorced or separated (34%), or widowed (15%).

Slightly over half (52%) of those surveyed work with a financial advisor, and 80% said that even if they became partnered in the future, they would still keep their finances separate.

The four top concerns for surveyed single adults were ranked as:

1.  Running out of savings (43%)

2.  Affording long-term care (42%)

3.  Becoming a burden to others (41%)

4.  Not having someone for emotional support as they age (30%)

Additional findings:

• Among financially solo women, 54% said their legacy goal is not being a financial burden to anyone.

• About 60% of single adults surveyed did not have a formal will in place.

• Just 41% had updated legal documents such as a health care directive.

• Only 38% had a financial power of attorney.

Advisors interviewed about the findings said their conversations with single clients often extend beyond finances, into questions such as the pros and cons of moving or other lifestyle changes. Among surveyed single adults who work with an advisor, nearly half (47%) said they turn to that advisor for emotional support as they navigate major decisions.

The assumption underneath the numbers

It would be easy to read findings like these as a story about individuals who need to get their affairs in order. I think that’s the wrong takeaway.

Those of us who have spent our careers in this industry have worked inside a set of assumptions that almost nobody says out loud:

There is a spouse.

The spouse is the beneficiary.

Long-term care starts at home with someone willing and able.

There is a person who notices that the will was never signed and keeps bringing it up.

Take these assumptions away and the plan fails.

Consider the documents... About 60% of these respondents have no will. This is not a group that avoids its finances - they hold an average of more than $700,000 in investable assets and just over half of them work with an advisor.

What they lack is the prompt - a reason or push to take action. Marriage produces a will. A new child produces a guardianship conversation. A spouse asks whether the health care directive was ever updated. Remove those triggers and the paperwork never surfaces, year after year, with nothing in the ordinary course of a life to force the issue.

Long-term care is where the gap gets most expensive. Affording it ranked second among the concerns in this survey and becoming a burden to others ranked third, which tells you these respondents already sense the problem even if the planning documents do not reflect it. For a married couple, the first stretch of care is typically delivered at home by a spouse, unpaid and uncounted by any model. For someone without a partner, that same care has to be purchased from the beginning. The need is identical. The cost is not, and I do not think our planning assumptions have caught up to the difference.

Then there is the finding I keep coming back to and find most interesting - nearly half of the respondents who work with an advisor turn to that person for emotional support during major decisions. So for a large and growing group of clients, the advisory relationship is absorbing work that a spouse would otherwise have done.

Whether or not the profession asked for that role, it has it. Advisors are being consulted on whether to sell the house, whether to move closer to family, when to make a change in how someone lives. These are not portfolio questions, and most advisors were not trained for them.

I think we need to start by challenging the assumption itself. If nearly half of American adults are single, and three quarters of the ones in this study expect to stay that way, then the married-couple default is now one of at least two baselines. That has real impacts for how products are designed, how long-term care exposure gets modeled, how beneficiary structures are built, and how advisors are prepared for conversations that occur beyond the balance sheet.

This survey shows that we cannot keep treating this group as an edge case - they are half the room.

The Flying Solo research was conducted online by Artemis Strategy Group from January 2 to 29, 2026. Additional advisor commentary reported by InvestmentNews.