Why it’s hard for Americans to retire

This video starts out talking to people with higher incomes than most of the working public.  Most make less than a living wage, are paid barely over the minimum allowed by law, some have short or weird day shifts requiring the hold of multiple jobs.  Millions of people can not work to gain retirement.  I was lucky, I worked a high paying job in my mid 20s to early 30s.  That meant I get the same as my husband, who worked in low paying jobs and then as a CNAA in a hospital.  Retiring at 67 and 3 months a man who after a 12 hour shift could barely walk and was worn out.  Retirement shrank our income drastically but it saved his life I think.  Only the high paid people can save, as the video says towards the end the rest of us need everything and more to survive.  Life shouldn’t be a drudgery for most until death, and a grand time for the few, but in the US profit is king.  Those companies need that retirement money for higher dividends and more profit for the wealthy.   What the video doesn’t mention is those other countries pay more, have better social services, and much less costly medical systems for the public.   Hugs.  Scottie

There’s a reason so many of us don’t have enough retirement savings.

Vox sat down with people in our New York City studio to talk to them about the state of their retirement savings. By the standards of most financial experts, Americans are woefully behind on saving for retirement. The reason why is rooted in changes in policy to our retirement system with today’s result being a flawed design in how people set aside money so they can one day stop working. In this video, we interviewed four people about their level of retirement preparedness and two experts about the state of retirement readiness more broadly in the US. One culprit lies in changes to the country’s pension system, which sets the US apart from countries like Australia and the UK; these places have systems which help more people save more money for retirement.

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