How does the US retirement system match up against the rest of the world? Pretty poorly according to the Melbourne Mercer Global Pension Index as the US had the 10th best retirement system as evaluated by the survey in 2010 with a score of 57.3, a decrease from its previous ranking in 2009 of number six. The cause for the decrease has been the continued shrink in retirement asset values such as housing equity and retirement funds as well as the ballooning debt of the government making the US a solid C student. Retirement in the rioting country of France was rated at 11 and with the amount of turmoil that the increase in the retirement age has brought on, it maybe heading lower in the rankings for 2011.
The index, not without its pluses and minuses, examines a country’s retirement-income system using the following criteria: adequacy (the benefits that are currently being provided); sustainability (what’s the likelihood that the current system will be able to provide benefits in the future); and integrity (how good is the private sector’s retirement-income system) with the total score with the worst score being zero and the best being 100. The best retirement income system in the index was from the Netherlands and the worst score was from China.
Visit the Melbourne Mercer Global Pension Index 2010
