By Curt Roese | Published: March 17, 2026
Professional expertise — the knowledge, skills, and problem-solving ability built over a 30 or 40-year career — qualifies as a retirement asset in every practical sense. It generates income, can be deployed repeatedly without being depleted, and costs nothing to maintain. For adults 55 and older facing a retirement income gap, expertise monetization through consulting, coaching, or course/cohort/community businesses may be the most immediately available tool they have.
This post covers what the retirement income gap actually looks like by the numbers, why professional expertise meets the definition of a financial asset, which business models work best for experienced professionals, and what first steps look like for someone ready to act.
The Retirement Income Gap Is Bigger Than Most People Realize
Most retirement conversations start with a savings number. They should start with a gap calculation.
According to the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies' 23rd Annual Retirement Survey (2023), today's retirees have a median of $71,000 in total savings to draw on — excluding home equity. The same report puts median annual household income for retirees at $55,000, with 36% of retirees reporting less than $50,000 in annual household income.
Separately, a 2024 AARP survey found that 1 in 5 adults 50 and older have no retirement savings at all, and that 61% of adults 50+ worry they won't have enough money to support themselves in retirement.
These numbers are not an indictment of anyone's discipline or planning. They reflect structural realities that no spreadsheet from 1995 could have predicted accurately: longer lifespans that stretch retirement to 25 or 30 years, healthcare costs that have consistently outpaced general inflation, and Social Security adjustments that most people over 50 consider inadequate. A 2024 AARP analysis found that only 16% of Americans 50+ say a cost-of-living adjustment under 3% is enough to keep pace with rising prices.
The gap, for most people, is not a rounding error. It is a meaningful monthly number that requires a meaningful response. A salary drawdown is not repeatable. A 401(k) shrinks with every withdrawal. But expertise, applied in the right structure, does neither of those things.
The question worth asking is not whether the gap exists. It is what you have available to close it.
What Makes Professional Expertise a Legitimate Retirement Asset
A financial asset has three core characteristics: it generates income, it can be deployed more than once, and it does not get consumed in the process of using it. Professional expertise meets all three criteria.
Consider the contrast with a traditional retirement asset like a savings account. Every dollar you withdraw is gone. A $500,000 balance declines with each distribution. Expertise, by contrast, generates income each time it is applied without diminishing the underlying resource. A financial consultant who charges for a strategic planning engagement does not lose any knowledge when the engagement is complete. The same insight can serve the next client.
This is not a motivational reframe. It is an accounting observation. The challenge is that expertise never appears on a personal balance sheet because no standard financial planning framework asks you to put it there. Most professionals spend decades creating value from their knowledge and then walk away from it at retirement as though it had no residual worth.
The data suggests the market disagrees with that assessment.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in its July 2023 Contingent and Alternative Employment Arrangements release that 11.5% of workers 55 and older are working as independent contractors on their main job, compared with 6.9% of workers ages 25 to 54. That same report found that 36% of all independent contractors in the United States are 55 or older — a share that is disproportionately large relative to their share of the overall workforce.
Kauffman Foundation data, as reported by Forbes in 2023, shows that people ages 55 to 64 now represent approximately 25% of new entrepreneurs in the United States. The market is not waiting for experienced professionals to show up. In many categories, it is actively seeking them out.
Expertise has market value. The gap between possessing it and pricing it is the business model.
Which Business Model Fits Your Expertise — and Your Life?
Knowing that expertise has value is one thing. Deciding how to bring it to market is where most professionals get stuck.
The three primary structures for professionals 55+ are consulting, coaching, and course/cohort/community businesses. Each has a different income profile, time requirement, and startup complexity.
Consulting is the fastest path to revenue for most experienced professionals. You are selling access to your specific knowledge to solve a specific problem for a specific client. The income is active — you work, you earn — but the hourly or project rate for senior-level expertise is typically the highest of the three models. Consulting requires the least infrastructure to start and the most relationship-building to sustain.
Coaching is adjacent to consulting but distinct. Where consulting delivers answers, coaching guides clients toward their own. The certification landscape in coaching is wide and variable, but experienced professionals often find that their credibility comes from their track record rather than credentials. Coaching tends toward recurring revenue structures — monthly retainers, session packages — that create more predictable income than project-based consulting.
Course/cohort/community businesses have the highest startup investment of the three — in time, if not in dollars — but they create the most scalable income structure. A well-built course serves many learners from a single creation effort. A community generates ongoing engagement and recurring subscription revenue. The tradeoff is that building an audience takes time, and time is the one resource in a retirement plan that cannot be replaced.
Most professionals find that their first business is a hybrid: a consulting or coaching engagement that generates near-term income while they develop a longer-range content or course strategy.
- Start with the model that matches your current lifestyle, not the model with the highest theoretical ceiling.
- A Tuesday-Thursday consulting practice generating a consistent monthly income closes a gap just as effectively as a course business that takes two years to build.
Why Adults 55+ Have Structural Advantages in the Independent Work Market
The conventional concern about building a business in your late 50s or 60s centers on disadvantage: less energy, unfamiliar technology, a shorter runway. The data tells a different story.
According to SHRM's analysis of BLS data (2023), nearly 23.4% of workers ages 65 and older are self-employed, compared with 9.4% of the broader working-age population. This is not a consolation statistic. It reflects the fact that older professionals have something younger workers are still accumulating: demonstrated results, established relationships, and the kind of domain-specific credibility that takes decades to build and cannot be replicated quickly.
Organizations increasingly structure work around project-based and fractional arrangements rather than full-time headcount. That shift favors experienced independent professionals over generalist employees. A company that cannot justify a full-time CFO will pay a fractional one. A nonprofit that cannot staff a full HR function will contract with a former HR executive for specific projects. The demand is real and growing.
The income motivation is also well-documented. AARP research from 2023 found that 42% of adults 50+ are either working in retirement for financial reasons or expect they will need to. Among non-retirees 50+, 57% anticipate working in retirement for financial reasons. These are not people dabbling. These are professionals with a real income objective and transferable skills to support it.
But financial need is not the only driver. Transamerica's 2023 research found that 75% of people planning to work past 65 cite healthy-aging reasons — staying mentally active, maintaining structure, continuing to contribute. AARP data from the same period shows that purpose and engagement rank alongside financial need as motivators for retirees who choose to keep working.
The reason you build matters because it shapes how you build. A practice designed around income optimization looks different from one designed around legacy or engagement. Both are valid. Neither requires apology.
How to Calculate Your Personal Income Gap Before You Do Anything Else
Before selecting a business model or pricing a service, the most useful single number to know is your actual monthly shortfall.
Most people know their general retirement savings balance. Fewer have calculated the specific monthly gap between projected income — Social Security plus any pension plus investment distributions — and actual monthly living expenses. That number determines how much earned income you need, which in turn informs how many clients or engagements you need to sustain, which determines which business model makes sense for your situation.
A CPA or financial planner can run this calculation. So can a well-designed retirement planning tool. Boldin is the tool I direct people to when they are ready to see the full picture with real numbers. It is built for this specific situation — not a generic investment calculator, but a retirement income planning tool that accounts for Social Security timing, healthcare costs, and income from self-employment or part-time work.
- Start with your total projected monthly income from all fixed sources.
- Subtract your actual monthly expenses, not a projected estimate — use three months of real spending data.
- The result is your gap number. That is the revenue target your business needs to hit, at minimum, for your finances to be stable.
If the gap is small, your business has more flexibility in how it grows. If the gap is significant, the model you choose needs to generate income relatively quickly, which points toward consulting or coaching over a long-runway course business.
Knowing the number is not discouraging. It is clarifying.
The Non-Financial Reasons Are Just as Real
Not everyone reading this has a meaningful income gap. Some professionals approaching or past 65 have saved well, have pension income, or have structured their finances such that Social Security covers the basics comfortably. They are still building something.
This is worth saying clearly because the retirement conversation is so dominated by financial anxiety that it can make purpose-driven motivations feel like luxuries. They are not.
Transamerica's research shows that 75% of people who plan to work past 65 cite healthy-aging reasons alongside financial ones: staying mentally active, maintaining a professional identity, having structured time with a purpose, contributing expertise to problems that matter.
Consider what it means to have spent 35 years developing a skill set that solved real problems for real organizations — and then to stop using it entirely. For many people, that is not retirement. That is a loss.
A consulting or coaching practice built around genuine expertise is not just an income vehicle. It is a structure for continued engagement at a level that matches the capabilities you have spent a career developing. Legacy, mentorship, industry contribution — these are serious motivations with serious outcomes, and they do not require a financial gap to justify.
- Write one sentence that completes this: "I am building this because..."
- If the answer is financial, that is a real and sufficient reason. If the answer is something else, that is equally real and sufficient.
Knowing your WHY before you build determines how you build, how you price, and how long you sustain it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it too late to start a consulting business at 60?
No, and the data supports that position. The Kauffman Foundation reports that people ages 55 to 64 represent approximately 25% of new entrepreneurs in the United States. BLS data shows that workers 55 and older are represented in independent contracting at more than double the rate of workers ages 25 to 54. Starting at 60 puts you ahead of a significant portion of the population that starts even later — and with considerably more credibility than someone starting at 30.
How much can I realistically earn from consulting after retirement?
This depends entirely on the problem you solve, who you solve it for, and how you price your time. There is no universal number. What is useful is this: a professional charging a modest hourly rate for two or three client engagements per month can generate meaningful supplemental income without a full-time schedule. The income does not need to replace a salary. It needs to close a gap or fund a specific goal.
What qualifies as expertise worth paying for?
If you were the person your colleagues came to with a specific category of problem, that is a starting point. Expertise worth paying for is specific, demonstrated, and outcome-oriented. It does not require a certification or a brand. It requires a track record. The clients most likely to pay you are the ones with the exact problem you spent your career solving.
Can self-employment income affect my Social Security benefits?
Yes, depending on your age and situation. If you begin collecting Social Security before your full retirement age and continue to earn income, the Social Security earnings test may reduce your benefit temporarily. After you reach full retirement age, there is no earnings limit. This is one of the most important planning questions for professionals who want to work while collecting benefits, and it warrants a conversation with a financial planner or the Social Security Administration directly before you make decisions.
What is the difference between consulting and coaching for someone with corporate experience?
Consulting delivers answers and solutions. You are hired to solve a defined problem using your specific expertise. Coaching guides a client toward their own solutions through structured questioning and accountability. Many professionals with senior corporate backgrounds find consulting to be the more natural starting point because it mirrors how they operated in their careers. Coaching often requires a more deliberate shift in approach, and some professionals pursue formal coach training to support that transition.
Do I need a business plan before I start?
You need enough clarity to take a first step, not a finished document. The most useful early exercise is defining the problem you solve, who has that problem, and what you would charge to solve it. That is the core of a business model. A formal plan becomes relevant when you are seeking financing or a partner — neither of which is typical in the early stage of a consulting or coaching practice.
How do I know if my income gap is large enough to justify starting a business?
Any income gap justifies exploring whether expertise can help close it. The relevant question is whether the gap requires significant monthly income quickly — which points toward active models like consulting — or whether a longer build is sustainable. Calculate your actual monthly shortfall first, then evaluate which business model can realistically generate that income within your timeline. The gap number is the anchor for every subsequent decision.
Your Expertise Has Been on the Balance Sheet All Along
The retirement income gap is real for most professionals approaching or past 65. The good news is that the most credible tool for closing it has been accumulating for decades: professional expertise that generates income, scales without depletion, and has demonstrated market demand among experienced independent workers.
The BLS and Kauffman data confirm what many professionals discover on their own — that experienced people are entering independent and entrepreneurial work at rates that reflect genuine market opportunity. The AARP and Transamerica research confirms that the motivations are both financial and personal, and that both categories are legitimate.
What most professionals have not done is assign a number to what they know, decide how to bring it to market, and calculate how much income they actually need to change their financial picture. Those three steps are where this work begins. The expertise is already there.
If you want the frameworks, templates, and tools for turning your expertise into a consulting, coaching, or course/cohort/community business, the Retirepreneur Hub is free and waiting. No credit card required.
Next Steps
Calculate your actual monthly income gap before you make any other decision. Pull three months of real spending data, total your projected fixed income sources, and find the difference. That number is your target. Once you have it, the right business model becomes considerably easier to identify. If you want help running those projections with a tool built for this stage of life, start at retirepreneur.link/boldin.
Sources: Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies, 23rd Annual Retirement Survey, 2023. AARP, "New AARP Survey: 1 in 5 Americans Ages 50+ Have No Retirement Savings," 2024. AARP, "Financial Need Influences Work in Retirement for Older Adults," 2023. AARP, "Social Security 2025 COLA Is Too Low, Say Americans 50+," 2024. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Contingent and Alternative Employment Arrangements, July 2023. SHRM, Older People in the U.S. Labor Force (using BLS data), 2023. Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, as reported in Forbes, 2023.
About the Author: Curt Roese is a CPA and former CFO helping professionals 55+ turn decades of expertise into consulting, coaching, and course/cohort/community businesses. He is the founder of Retirepreneur and is still building. Learn more about Curt.