Vanguard's 2026 How America Saves report draws on more than 1,300 retirement plans and nearly 5 million participants for whom Vanguard directly provides recordkeeping, as of the end of 2025.

That data found that 401(k) balances grew in 2025 rather than fell: the average account balance reached $167,970, up 13% from 2024, and the median balance reached $44,115, up 16%.

That gap between the average and the median is normal and doesn't describe a typical account. A relatively small number of large balances pull the average well above what most people have; about three in four participants had a balance below the average, while the median is the point where half of participants land above and half below.

Much of that one-year jump came from market returns rather than new savings alone. Vanguard reported that stock prices rose 16% during 2025, which lifts existing balances on its own, separate from whatever any individual Consolidated Edison employee contributed that year.

Is Consolidated Edison's 401(k) part of the same national trend?

The report also tracks how people are saving, separate from what their accounts are worth. The average employee deferral rate across Vanguard's plans was 7.6% of pay in 2025, with a median of 6.6%; once employer contributions are added in, the average combined savings rate was 12.1% and the median was 11.6%.

Overall plan participation, the share of eligible employees who actually contribute, reached 86% on a plan-weighted basis in 2025, up 5 percentage points since 2017. Employees who were automatically enrolled participated at a 94% rate, compared with 64% among those who had to sign up on their own.

A combined rate of 12.1% is close to the 12% to 15% of pay that many financial planners use as a rough target for a full career of saving, though the right number for any one person depends on when they started saving, what else they're setting aside, and when they plan to retire.

Why does automatic enrollment make such a difference?

By year-end 2025, 61% of the plans Vanguard administers had adopted automatic enrollment, including 79% of plans with 1,000 or more participants, and more than 70% of those plans also raise the default deferral rate automatically each year.

Default deferral rates have climbed too: 62% of automatic-enrollment plans now start new employees at 4% of pay or higher, up from 43% of plans in 2015. If Consolidated Edison's plan defaults lower than that, or skips automatic enrollment altogether, that's a gap between what the plan assumes and what a comfortable savings rate may call for.

How are participants investing the money?

Portfolio construction has also changed over time. In 2025, only 2% of participants held no equities at all, and just 2% had more than 20% of their account concentrated in employer stock; in 2005, those figures were 13% and 18%.

Fees are a separate factor from how the money is invested, and a less visible one. The U.S. Department of Labor's own example tracks an employee with 35 years left until retirement and a $25,000 starting balance: at a 7% average annual return, a 0.5% average fee grows that balance to $227,000, while a 1.5% average fee grows it to only $163,000. The 1 percentage point difference in fees alone accounts for a 28% gap in the ending balance.

Has access to Roth savings changed?

At year-end 2025, 98% of Vanguard plans offered a Roth contribution feature, up from 77% five years earlier, and 18% of participants in those plans had chosen it, up from 12% in 2019.

Starting in January 2026, employees 50 or older whose prior-year wages from their employer topped $150,000 can only make catch-up contributions on a Roth basis, which is the main reason nearly every plan now offers a Roth option.

Does the IRS give Consolidated Edison employees any extra room to save in 2026?

Employees 50 and older can add a $8,000 catch-up contribution beyond the regular 401(k) deferral limit for 2026, and employees who turn 60, 61, 62 or 63 at any point during the year can add a higher $11,250 catch-up instead.

The 2026 contribution limit for a traditional or Roth IRA is $7,500, which matters if Consolidated Edison employees are also funding an IRA alongside their workplace plan.

What should you check in your own account, rather than the national averages?

National figures describe millions of accounts across hundreds of employers; they're a useful benchmark, not a description of any one person's progress. A few questions translate the averages into something you can act on: how does your own deferral rate compare with what you're allowed to contribute, are you receiving the full employer contribution your plan offers, and does your current investment mix still match how far you are from retirement.

Those three questions point to Consolidated Edison's own plan rather than to Vanguard's national data: its match formula, its default savings rate if it uses automatic enrollment, and the investment menu it actually offers.

How Does Consolidated Edison's Own Retirement Plan Compare to the National Numbers?

For Consolidated Edison employees, those three questions point to two separate retirement plans the company actually runs. Its Thrift Savings Plan, the 401(k)-style plan, reported 21,792 participants and $7.3 billion in total assets at the end of 2025. Dividing those assets by the 21,094 accounts that held a balance works out to about $346,700 per account, roughly twice the national average Vanguard reported for the same year. That plan's 2025 Form 5500 lists a 401(k) deferral feature, an employer-match-type feature, and a default investment option for participants who do not choose their own investments, but not the separate code the form uses for automatic enrollment. Participants put in about $234 million of their own money in 2025, compared with about $100 million from the company.

Does Consolidated Edison Still Run a Traditional Pension?

Consolidated Edison also sponsors a separate defined benefit pension, the Consolidated Edison Retirement Plan, which uses a cash-balance formula; its 2024 Form 5500 does not carry the code for a frozen plan, and it reports 26,696 participants with a funding level its actuary put at about 99% of the plan's target that year. Employees weighing when to leave can ask the benefits office how that cash-balance formula factors into what they would actually receive, beyond the Thrift Savings Plan balance alone.