Global Retirement Security Report: We’re Number …. 14!

Investment News published a story about retirement security across the globe, and reports that the U.S. ranks #14.  U.S. comes in 14th in global ranking of retirement security reports on Natixis Global Asset Management’s annual ranking. The article explains that Norway, Switzerland and Iceland came in 1, 2 and 3 respectively, while the U.S. finished at 14 out of 43.  According to the article, we did better in some categories, even breaking the top 10, for example, “No. 7, in the health care part of the index.” But bummer, we were “No. 30 for life expectancy.” But even more of a bummer, “[o]ne area in which the U.S. had an abysmal ranking was in its high level of income inequality, which helped drive it down to No. 37 of the 43 countries. The U.S. and Singapore share the dubious distinction of being the only countries in the top five for income per capita and in the bottom 10 for their large gaps in income equality.” According to the article “Norway joins a number of top 10 countries in having a compulsory workplace savings program. It requires employers to fund private retirement accounts with 2% of a worker’s earnings annually. That pales next to Australia, No. 6, where employers must kick in at least 9.5%. “

The full Natixis report is available here.