29 September 2026
These are the extra checks. The article is the place to start. Same household throughout: single homeowner, 67, $600,000 super, $40,000 other assets, balanced mix, 0.5% fee capped at $350, franking at 80%, pension growth of 0.3% a year above prices, unless a line says otherwise.
The article shifts the 1974 ups and downs so the average becomes 2.5%, and 1974 stays at roughly 12%. Income is about $75,000, which is $8,000 below a smooth 2.5%. Two ways of doing that shift land in the same place. Subtract about 4.5 percentage points from every year, or scale each year's price rise so the compound average is exactly 2.5%. Both give about $75,000.
Both also turn 8 of the 25 years into falling prices, the deepest about 5% down. The pension in these figures is already in today's dollars, so a falling-price year leaves it unchanged and only changes that year's investment return.
Shuffling that shifted list 1,000 times, a typical shuffle pays about $83,000, the same as a smooth 2.5%, and none paid less than the real order. So the $8,000 is not the jumps themselves. A random ordering of them costs nothing. Swapping only the high year off 1974 recovers about $1,300 of the $8,000.
Shuffling the investment returns and leaving inflation in its historical order does not recover the $6,000 on the unshifted path. A typical shuffle of that kind pays about $61,500, a little under the actual $62,227. The inflation-only shuffle is the one that lands on the smooth 7% row.
A real 2.5% period does not carry 12% spikes. Scaling the jumps down in proportion to the lower average turns 1974 into about 6%, and one year is a fraction below zero. Income is about $80,000. About $3,000 a year is what remains against a smooth 2.5%. That is why the article calls the $8,000 a stress test and not an exact estimate.
The $6,000 and the $8,000 are the same $21,000 split in a different order. Smooth the jumps first, while the average stays at 7%, and the jumps are about $6,000 and the average is about $15,000. Shift the average first and keep a 12% year, and the jumps are about $8,000 and the average is about $13,000. A 12% year is a harder outlier next to 2.5% than next to 7%.
The whole-year shuffle keeps each inflation rate beside its own return, so the pairing stays intact. A typical random order of those paired years, 1,000 times, pays about $67,900, about $5,700 more than the actual $62,227, and 95 of 1,000 paid less. That is about the same lift as shuffling inflation alone. Shuffling the investment returns and leaving inflation in place, a typical result is about $61,500, and 554 of 1,000 paid less than the actual path. Reversing the order lifts income to about $76,000. Moving the first five years to the end lifts it to about $70,000.
From 1969, a typical returns shuffle, inflation left in place, pays about $55,500, about $4,500 more than the actual income, and 105 of 1,000 paid less. The inflation-only shuffle adds about $2,000. A typical whole-year shuffle from 1969 paid about $6,700 more. On that start the market order is not neutral.
With the pension off, a 1974 start supports about $34,000. A typical inflation-only shuffle adds about $10,000, and none of 1,000 paid less. A typical whole-year shuffle adds about $12,500. From 1969, with the pension off, income is about $20,000. A typical inflation shuffle adds about $3,000. A typical whole-year shuffle adds about $12,000. A smooth 2.5% says about $38,000, and most of that gap is the 8% average.
The article uses the calculator's usual cap, so the investment fee is $350 a year, not 0.5% of $600,000. Taking the cap off, so the full 0.5% applies, lowers the 1974 income by about $1,000. A 1% fee with no cap leaves about $60,000. Either way the 1974 start is still above $55,000. The 1969 start is still short.
From 1949 to 2024 the calculator uses the rise in the CPI from one December quarter to the next, from the ABS. December 1974 was 16.7%. December 2022 was 7.8%. December 2023 was 4.1%. December 2001, the December quarter, was 3.1%. An older 6% figure for 2001 matched a June print that included the GST. 2025 is the monthly CPI, up 3.8% over the twelve months to December 2025. Years before 1949 still use older rounded figures, so the article starts its comparisons in 1950.
These are the 25 December-quarter rates behind the 1974 retirement, in percent. The ladder on the article uses this list.
| Year | December-quarter inflation |
|---|---|
| 1974 | 16.7% |
| 1975 | 14.3% |
| 1976 | 14.3% |
| 1977 | 9.4% |
| 1978 | 7.6% |
| 1979 | 10.2% |
| 1980 | 9.2% |
| 1981 | 11.0% |
| 1982 | 11.3% |
| 1983 | 8.6% |
| 1984 | 2.5% |
| 1985 | 8.3% |
| 1986 | 9.6% |
| 1987 | 7.2% |
| 1988 | 7.6% |
| 1989 | 7.8% |
| 1990 | 6.9% |
| 1991 | 1.5% |
| 1992 | 0.3% |
| 1993 | 1.8% |
| 1994 | 2.6% |
| 1995 | 5.1% |
| 1996 | 1.5% |
| 1997 | -0.3% |
| 1998 | 1.5% |
In 2022, Australian shares in this record fell 3%. With prices up 7.8%, buying power fell by 10%. Assuming 2.5% instead cuts that loss to about 5.4%, which is nearly half, a gap of about 5 percentage points. There is no 25-year retirement in this record that starts in 2022. Only four years of data come after it.
The calculator can also draw historical years at random. Each draw keeps that year's investment return with that year's inflation. The draws are separate, so a long run of high inflation, like the 1970s, comes up less often than it did in real life. That test can include one bad inflation year. It does not replay a decade of them, and it is not a flat 2.5% path.