Measure the floor
Start with the non-negotiable monthly expenses, then identify how much is covered by income that does not depend on portfolio performance.
Tod Long · Oklahoma City
Built for the moment the plan has to perform.
Retirement income architect, author, founder and host of The Income Standard. Former championship sprinter. One throughline: structure the work before the pressure arrives.
01
Two arenas. The same demand for preparation under pressure.
The work
Retirement changes the assignment. A portfolio that was built to grow must now be structured to produce income.
Tod Long’s work begins at that handoff—from accumulation to distribution. The question is no longer only how much has been saved. It is where each dollar of retirement income will come from, which risks can interrupt it, and which parts of the plan can hold without asking the market’s permission.
That work became The Income Standard: a platform, book and podcast devoted to making retirement income measurable, explainable and structurally sound.
The operating principles
A plan should be understood before it is trusted.
Separate growth from income
Growth assets and income obligations do different jobs. A sound architecture makes those jobs explicit instead of asking every dollar to do everything.
Design for the hard year
The revealing test is not the average market year. It is the early downturn, the longer life, the tax surprise—the moment the structure has to perform.
The Income Standard
Retirement income, designed—not guessed.
The central body of Tod’s current work lives at The Income Standard. Each format approaches the same problem from a different angle.
The book
The Income Standard: How to Engineer Retirement Income You Can’t Outlive presents the full framework.
Explore the book →The podcast
Focused episodes on income floors, sequence risk, longevity, RMDs and the decisions retirement makes irreversible.
Browse episodes →The review
A structured look at where retirement income comes from, where the architecture is exposed and what the gap actually is.
See the review →FounderThe Income Standard
AuthorThe Income Standard book
HostThe Income Standard podcast
20+Years in practice
From the notebook