The Financial Times (U.K.), that incubator of liberal, nanny-state ideology, reminds us that Social Security is by no means the only such retirement insurance plan in the world. And that, in fact, it is among the least-generous of such programs.
The ferocity of conservatives' opposition to Social Security suggests that it is something unprecedented in all of human history, a moral and philosophical aberration in the context of man's progression (sorry, creationists!) from knuckle-walker to moon-walker.
Says the
FT, not so!
The average employee in an advanced country can expect a government pension of 70 per cent of his or her after-tax earnings at retirement compared with 39 per cent for an equivalent US citizen.
The debate raging about the future of the US Social Security system is taking place against the backdrop of a huge variety of state pension systems around the world. The OECD finds it is more comfortable to retire in Luxembourg than in Ireland; better to be poor in New Zealand than in Germany; and preferable to be nearing retirement and well-off in Italy than in the US.
Meanwhile, the president seeks to make the Social Security insurance even less relevant to the lives of the majority of Americans. His plan for progressive indexation would
reduce benefits to all but the least well-off, those earning $16,000 per year or less. Benefits for people below this line would remain at current levels.
UncommonSense