Keeping our perspective on retirement

The demon­stra­tors are protest­ing Mr. Putin’s pen­sion law, in­tro­duced in June. The law is meant to save the Russ­ian trea­sury $15 bil­lion a year by 2024 by grad­u­ally in­creas­ing the re­tire­ment age to 65 from 60 for men, and to 60 from 55 for women. At first glance, the reform doesn’t seem dramatic enough to stir such pas­sions. Russ­ian pen­sions are skimpy any­way, averaging around $220 a month. (The poverty line is $171 and average salary $592

Life ex­pectancy for Russ­ian men is un­der 67, not even two full years past the new, higher-than-ever re­tirement age. Many men fear they’ll lit­er­ally be worked to death. “With this pen­sion re­form, with every­thing pushed back, I feel like I’ll never get out,” a rail-way worker said last month.

Source: Wall Street Journal, Russian Pensions and the Risk of War, October 17, 2018

Keep in mind, the life expectancy at age 65 in the US is twenty years and has grown from fourteen years since 1940.