Don’t bet on it. What we need is a culture of prudent spending and living within one’s means. There have been numerous efforts by government to encourage saving for retirement, none have changed much.
Interesting that the “shortfall” described below is attributed in part to modest increases in the Social Security full retirement age. In fact, most advisers suggested delaying SS for as long as possible to boost monthly income and certainly the longer a person works and saves the better off they will be.
Last month, Illinois and California began requiring employers that don’t offer retirement plans to give employees access to state-sponsored savings vehicles, by automatically enrolling them in individual retirement accounts invested in mutual funds. Employees are free to opt out.
The goal of the programs is to help shore up the roughly half of American households whose standard of living is at risk of declining after retirement, up from 45% in 2004, according to Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research.
The shortfall is due to factors including insufficient savings rates, low interest rates, rising debt levels and the gradual increase in the age at which people can claim full Social Security benefits. Source: WSJ 12-10-18
