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Korea's Birthrate Hits Another Record Low
(www.stoppopulationdecline.org)
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this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2023
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As you know, the current system in America is that we pay into the retirement system. In the present time those funds are used to support present day seniors, and then when you have reached the proper age the people currently paying into it are supporting you but can (supposedly) expect to be supported the same way. I started paying into it at age 16, and now at 69 I am collecting. And additionally, I need to have saved up.
I don't know how we would transfer out of this system and into a completely self sufficient one. I DO know that this system mitigated the deep deep poverty many elderly used to experience. Because for the working and poor classes, no one realistically makes enough to set aside for retirement.
I understand the current system, I just think it's not a good one. It seems to be designed on the idea that there will be an ever greater pool of young people who will support the people who are at retirement age. If that assumption is incorrect (and it currently seems to be incorrect) the current seniors don't have enough to retire.
It would make more sense if the system was designed similar to an individual retirement plan, except pooled for everybody of a certain age. So, you paid into the system throughout your life, then withdrew money when you retired. In a system like that it wouldn't matter if there was a population boom or a population crash when you were getting older, because the only thing that mattered for your retirement were the contributions you (and everyone else your age) made during your life.
Undoubtedly it would be hard to switch to that kind of a system, but it makes so much more sense than your retirement depending on the contributions of future generations.
It's not necessarily financial trouble.
You need health care workers. Those workers do not contribute to other sectors of the economy, but still consume products. So a growing population of older people automatically reduces the effective number of working people.