Liu L
Soc Secur Bull. 1999;62(1):23-46.
This article examines the U.K. retirement income security system from the American perspective. It addresses issues that most concern U.S. analysts: how the United Kingdom has kept its future public pension costs at a manageable level, the extent to which privatization of public pensions has contributed to low pension costs, the popular appeal of individual pension accounts, and the impact of privatization on retirement income. These issues are best understood in the context of the U.K. pension program's particular institutional structure and policies, two of which--"contracting out" of public pensions, and strong reliance on means-tested benefits--have been largely rejected in the evolution of U.S. policy to date. Particular use is made of recently available data on coverage rates for public and private pension programs over the total working population and administrative records on inactive personal pension accounts.
本文从美国的视角审视英国的退休收入保障体系。它探讨了美国分析人士最为关注的问题：英国如何将其未来公共养老金成本维持在可控水平，公共养老金私有化在多大程度上导致了较低的养老金成本，个人养老金账户的民众吸引力，以及私有化对退休收入的影响。在英国养老金计划独特的制度结构和政策背景下，这些问题最容易理解，其中两项政策——公共养老金的“退出机制”以及对经过经济状况调查的福利的强烈依赖——在迄今为止美国政策的演变过程中基本上被摒弃了。本文特别利用了最近可得的关于公共和私人养老金计划覆盖全体在职人口的覆盖率数据，以及关于非活跃个人养老金账户的行政记录。
