Nearly 40 percent hit the retirement floor. The other 60 percent are still climbing.
Nearly 40%. That is how many working Malaysians between 18 and 60 have hit the amount EPF considers the bare minimum to survive retirement. Not comfortable. Not enjoyable. Just basic. Enough to cover essentials for 20 years after you stop working.
Which means, on the flip side, that roughly 6 out of every 10 working Malaysians right now have not reached even that floor. This was announced in Parliament today, and the number, while framed as encouraging progress, quietly reveals just how far the majority of us still have to go.
The Number Nobody Fully Understands
Deputy Finance Minister Liew Chin Tong told the Dewan Rakyat that as of May 31 this year, 3.04 million out of 7.94 million formal active EPF members aged 18 to 60, or 38.3%, had achieved the Basic Savings target for their age. That is actually an improvement from 35% the year before, credited to EPF's push on voluntary top-up schemes.
But here is where the number gets misleading if you do not know the backstory. The Basic Savings target used to sit at RM240,000 for years. EPF has now raised it, phasing it upward from RM270,000 in 2026 to eventually RM390,000 by 2030, to reflect rising living costs and longer life expectancy. Under this Retirement Income Adequacy framework, RM390,000 is only the "Basic" tier. "Adequate" savings sits at RM650,000. "Enhanced" savings, the tier that actually supports a comfortable retirement, sits at RM1.3 million.
Most Malaysians tracking their EPF balance are comparing it against the wrong benchmark entirely. RM390,000 is not a comfortable retirement number. It is the floor.
What RM390,000 Actually Buys You
Break that number down and the reality gets sharper. RM390,000 spread across 20 years of retirement works out to roughly RM1,625 a month, before accounting for inflation eating into that figure every single year you are retired. That is meant to cover housing, food, medical costs, and daily living, for two full decades, with essentially no room for the kind of unexpected expenses that show up constantly in real life.
For members who never reach even that floor, the picture darkens fast. A balance under RM200,000 might realistically stretch across only a handful of years before running dry. Below RM100,000, the situation becomes genuinely precarious, especially for anyone without other savings, investments, or family support to fall back on.
The uncomfortable truth is that EPF was never designed to be someone's entire retirement plan. It was designed to be the floor beneath other savings. For a huge share of Malaysians, it has quietly become the entire plan by default, because nothing else got built alongside it.
The Pandemic Withdrawals Still Echo Today
Part of why so many Malaysians are behind traces directly back to 2020 through 2022, when EPF permitted a series of special withdrawals, i-Sinar, i-Lestari, i-Citra, allowing members to access their retirement savings early during the pandemic. EPF's own leadership has since confirmed that the percentage of members meeting the Basic Savings target actually declined during those years specifically because of those withdrawals, only beginning to recover once the special withdrawal windows closed.
Nobody should pretend those decisions were made lightly. Malaysians pulled from their retirement savings because groceries needed buying, rent needed paying, and jobs had disappeared overnight. It was survival, not carelessness. But the consequence is real and ongoing: an entire cohort of EPF members is now rebuilding a retirement runway from a lower starting point than they would have had otherwise, and the RM390,000 target keeps climbing while some accounts are still recovering from money withdrawn years ago.
Closing the Gap Without Payroll Behind You
For anyone self-employed, freelancing, or running a business without a fixed monthly payroll, contributing to EPF requires deliberate effort rather than automatic deduction. EPF's i-Saraan and i-Saraan Plus programmes exist precisely for this group, gig workers, e-hailing drivers, freelancers, business owners, offering voluntary contribution channels with government matching incentives designed to help this exact population catch up.
The gap does not close itself once a steady paycheck disappears. It only closes through intentional, self-initiated contributions, which is precisely the discipline that is hardest to maintain when income becomes irregular and every ringgit has an immediate, competing claim on it.
My Take
I check my EPF statement fairly often, so this topic hits close to home. I withdrew my entire Account 2 the moment I turned 50, because as someone no longer on payroll, I needed that money to actually survive. My main account still holds a meaningful balance, though not quite at the RM300,000 mark. Since the retrenchment, my contributions have taken a back seat entirely. I know exactly why that gap exists in my own numbers, and I know I am not unique in that.
I also withdrew during the pandemic special withdrawal rounds. I do not regret it. At the time, that money went straight into groceries, bills, keeping the household running through a genuinely uncertain period. I think the people who regret it now are mostly those whose accounts were already thin to begin with, where the withdrawal left a much deeper hole than it did for others with more cushion.
Here is what I think most Malaysians genuinely do not understand: the Basic Savings target is not a finish line, it is a starting line. Anything under RM200,000 realistically only supports a retiree for a few years. Under RM100,000 is worse still. Knowing how to actually put that EPF money to work, through EPF-linked unit trust investments or similar instruments, which I personally use, can meaningfully improve the outcome rather than just letting the balance sit passively.
If a friend in their 30s or 40s told me they are nowhere near their target and felt panicked about it, I would tell them this: you are still young enough to change the trajectory. Start voluntary self-contributions now, even small ones, consistently. Look into EPF-linked investment options if you want your existing balance working harder rather than sitting flat. The panic is understandable, but panic without action changes nothing. The runway is still there. It just needs someone to actually start walking it.
Kamarul Azwan (k.azwan@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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