GIB#3  

Introduction 

The British retirement income system is perhaps more dependent on private programs than any in the industrialized world. The government provides a modest and uniform "Basic Pension" to career workers, and now to carers and the disabled. But as benefits are indexed to prices, not wages, the Basic Pension is projected to replace a steadily declining share of earnings. The government also has a second tier earnings-related plan. But as most workers "contract out," they will rely on employer and/or individual "personal pensions" to maintain pre-retirement living standards...

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Steven A. Sass is a research associate at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College and author of The Promise of Private Pensions (Harvard University Press 1997) and co-author of "Social Security: How Social and Secure Should It Be?" in Steven Sass and Robert Triest, eds., Social Security Reform: Links to Saving, Investment, and Growth (Federal Reserve Bank of Boston 1997). He thanks Alicia Munnell and Michael Orszag for critical corrections and improvements, Andy Eschtruth for heroic editorial help, and Amy Chasse for elegant design and production.The Center gratefully acknowledges the Cogan Family Foundation for providing support for this publication.