Overcoming the Saving Slump: How to Increase the Effectiveness of Financial Education and Saving Programs
Annamaria Lusardi
Abstract
The great majority of working Americans are unprepared to face the difficult task of planning for retirement. In fact, the personal savings rate has been holding steady at zero for several years, down from 8 percent in the mid-1980s. This book explores the many challenges facing workers in the transition from a traditional defined benefit pension system one that requires more individual responsibility, analyzing the considerable impediments to saving and evaluating financial literacy programs devised by employers and the government. Mapping the changing landscape of pensions and the rise of de ... More
The great majority of working Americans are unprepared to face the difficult task of planning for retirement. In fact, the personal savings rate has been holding steady at zero for several years, down from 8 percent in the mid-1980s. This book explores the many challenges facing workers in the transition from a traditional defined benefit pension system one that requires more individual responsibility, analyzing the considerable impediments to saving and evaluating financial literacy programs devised by employers and the government. Mapping the changing landscape of pensions and the rise of defined contribution plans, the author and others investigate new methods for stimulating saving and promoting financial education, drawing on the experience of the United States as well as countries that have privatized their welfare systems, including Sweden and Chile. This volume pinpoints where human resources departments, the financial industry, and government officials have succeeded—or failed—in bridging the way to a new retirement system.
Keywords:
working Americans,
planning for retirement,
personal savings rate,
benefit pension system,
individual responsibility,
saving,
financial literacy programs,
employers,
government,
defined contribution plans
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2009 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780226497099 |
| Published to Chicago Scholarship Online: February 2013 |
DOI:10.7208/chicago/9780226497105.001.0001 |
