Before we beat ourselves up about our pension saving system, take a look at what is happening on the other side of the pond. The American system works for those who work long and hard and who have healthcare, it does not work for those in low paid jobs, who are unemployed and who have neither healthcare or the savings to meet their bills.
Here is a comment I picked out , after hearing the self-congratulations of those on the Yahoo Finance call embedded above
I can barely afford to eat and now you’re going to force me to use my money in your moral high ground virtual signal way. Leave me alone.
That sounds like the voice of a seriously pissed off citizen coming off a bad Christmas. It’s a voice you don’t get to hear too often as most of us don’t use Yahoo Finance to get our financial woes off our chest and very few people with no money are as articulate as “Rikdoctor”. Whether the account is authentic or not, the point is well made.
The “sink or swing” culture of the USA has been challenged by Obamacare and now by Secure and Secure 2.0 but the USA is still a longer way from providing universal social security than either the UK or our European peers. Incentives to save in Secure 2.0, the new package of retirement policies introduced this week are still focussing on the upwardly mobile not the down and out.
But it’s great to see Americans like Angela Antonelli getting behind the opportunities that Secure 2.0 is opening up. You can read more about them here.
