Will you ever be able to retire?

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]Will you ever be able to stop working?

[00:00:02]Across the world, pension funds are running out of cash. In the US, the average retiree gets $2,71 a month from Social Security, a trust fund employees pay into while they're working. Problem is, it's emptying out.

[00:00:14]>> The problem is that we are now seeing uh a lot more people drawing on that retirement fund than we're getting money put in.

[00:00:22]>> Estimates are the US fund will run out of money in just eight years. In Western Europe, state pensions are funded directly by working taxpayers, but they've got the same problem. There just aren't enough working people paying in.

[00:00:33]>> In the 1960s, there were five workers to every retiree. So, we could, the US could afford uh broad-based, generous um retirement provision. We're now below three workers per uh retiree.

[00:00:46]>> One answer is to try and get people to save more into their own retirement accounts, but that assumes they've got any spare cash. A study this week in the UK showed 45% of working age people aren't saving into a pension at all.

[00:00:59]That means the next generation of pensioners will be a lot worse off than today's and women approaching retirement only have half the average savings that men do. Another answer, work longer.

[00:01:09]That tends to be hugely unpopular. In France, the retirement age is just 62, but President Emanuel Mahon's government has had to give up on trying to raise it after protests over pensions brought down two prime ministers. In the US, more than one in five Americans is still working at 70.