Twenty-Two Percent of Americans Would Rather Die Than Retire w/ No Savings!

[Brovane]

Original Source

OECD Table

OECD Sources and Methods

Uno

Thanks -

This table includes forecast data on households saving rates in percentage of disposable household income.

Since they are referencing disposable income this leads me to believe that they are looking at post tax income. Which means any savings done pre-tax isn't factored into this data which in my opinion makes this graph fairly meaningless. The saving rates differences could be more about how the tax laws are written in the country to favor pre or post tax savings. With the US tax laws the 401k/IRA/403B pre-tax savings is heavily favored.

 

[CLite]

Thanks -


Since they are referencing disposable income this leads me to believe that they are looking at post tax income. Which means any savings done pre-tax isn't factored into this data which in my opinion makes this graph fairly meaningless. The saving rates differences could be more about how the tax laws are written in the country to favor pre or post tax savings. With the US tax laws the 401k/IRA/403B pre-tax savings is heavily favored.

good catch.

 

[unokitty]

Thanks -


Since they are referencing disposable income this leads me to believe that they are looking at post tax income. Which means any savings done pre-tax isn't factored into this data which in my opinion makes this graph fairly meaningless. The saving rates differences could be more about how the tax laws are written in the country to favor pre or post tax savings. With the US tax laws the 401k/IRA/403B pre-tax savings is heavily favored.

Don't see your assumptions reflected in their documentation (doc format)

Being relatively contingent, the choice of accounting conventions can lead to measures of aggregates that are highly dependent on a country’s institutional organisation, and thus not without impact on the diagnosis of its economic situation. To make that impact clearer, we shall review those conventions and evaluate their impact for a few main countries. To start with, we shall recommend the use of a saving rate calculated solely on the basis of national accounting concepts. Then, we shall examine a number of alternative conventions that would improve the comparability of measures of the saving rate but which depart from those concepts. However, to apply this new method, additional information would have to be collected and harmonised accounting rules would have to be developed.

Collecting these types of statistics has challenges. Still, that doesn't mean that the OCED data is meaningless.

Uno

 

[Brovane]

Don't see your assumptions reflected in their documentation (doc format)



Collecting these types of statistics has challenges. Still, that doesn't mean that the OCED data is meaningless.

Uno

Your link above doesn't work.

http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/economics/household-saving-rates-forecasts_2074384x-table7

The chart here says disposable income.

Household saving rates - forecasts Percentage of disposable household income

A reference to disposable income to me would indicate after Tax based on the definition. If you have a different definition of disposable income please provide.

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/disposableincome.asp

DEFINITION of 'Disposable Income'

The amount of money that households have available for spending and saving after income taxes have been accounted for. Disposable personal income is often monitored as one of the many key economic indicators used to gauge the overall state of the economy.

Looking at income post tax for savings when the primary vehicle used in the US for retirement savings is pre-tax makes the data in my opinion meaningless when comparing savings rates. Somebody could be saving 15% of their pre-tax income in a 401k and saving 2% of their post-tax disposable income and this chart would show a savings rate of 2% for that person when they are actually saving 17%. So yes in my opinion the chart is fairly useless in comparing savings rates.

 

[bshole]

Granted everyone's situation is different, but I'll never accept "being tired of struggling" as a valid excuse for suicide.

Everybody is going to die someday. If somebody decides to leave on their own terms by selecting the time, place and manner, I wouldn't judge them harshly for that.

If there is no happiness in living, why bother living at all? I know I would probably blow my brains out if I didn't have an interaction with Boberfett at least once a week. He gives my life the meaning and joy that has been otherwise lacking.

 

[unokitty]

Your link above doesn't work.

http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/economics/household-saving-rates-forecasts_2074384x-table7

The chart here says disposable income.

A reference to disposable income to me would indicate after Tax based on the definition. If you have a different definition of disposable income please provide.

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/disposableincome.asp



Looking at income post tax for savings when the primary vehicle used in the US for retirement savings is pre-tax makes the data in my opinion meaningless when comparing savings rates. Somebody could be saving 15% of their pre-tax income in a 401k and saving 2% of their post-tax disposable income and this chart would show a savings rate of 2% for that person when they are actually saving 17%. So yes in my opinion the chart is fairly useless in comparing savings rates.

http://www.oecd.org/std/na/1953416.doc

Link fixed...
OECD discusses related issues in their documentation. For example:

... the choice of accounting conventions can lead to measures of aggregates that are highly dependent on a country’s institutional organisation, and thus not without impact on the diagnosis of its economic situation. To make that impact clearer, we shall review those conventions and evaluate their impact for a few main countries. To start with, we shall recommend the use of a saving rate calculated solely on the basis of national accounting concepts. Then, we shall examine a number of alternative conventions that would improve the comparability of measures of the saving rate but which depart from those concepts.

Given the complexity of comparing different countries savings rates, its clear that OECD's method isn't perfect. But, to me, that doesn't mean that it is meaningless...

Uno

 

[unokitty]

...If there is no happiness in living, why bother living at all? I know I would probably blow my brains out if I didn't have an interaction with Boberfett at least once a week. He gives my life the meaning and joy that has been otherwise lacking.

Dude,
You are not authorized to 'blow your brains out.'

What you are authorized to do is to keep working and contributing to Social Security so that others can get their checks.

Now, back to work!
Uno

 

[Brovane]

http://www.oecd.org/std/na/1953416.doc

Link fixed...
OECD discusses related issues in their documentation. For example:


Given the complexity of comparing different countries savings rates, its clear that OECD's method isn't perfect. But that doesn't mean that it is meaningless...

Uno

How would it be relevant when it is only looking at Post-tax savings? It is like you are comparing Apples to Oranges. It gives a fairly skewed view by leaving out all the pre-tax savings. Also for me I hate when organizations create graphs and leave out relevant facts like it is looking at disposable income, which means post tax. That fact should be displayed predominatly on the graph not buried under links.

 

[BurnItDwn]

Meh, Id rather be poor and live in extremely low cost rural area or trailer park vs dead....

 

[Svnla]

Meh, Id rather be poor and live in extremely low cost rural area or trailer park vs dead....

What? and no broad band internet? May as well be dead for ATOTers. :biggrin:

 

[BurnItDwn]

What? and no broad band internet? May as well be dead for ATOTers. :biggrin:

Pretty much all trailer parks I have seen have decent internet connectivity. The one I lived in in Wheeling IL for 8 years had DSL available in the 90s, and Cable by 2001.

As far as living in a rural area, there is decent wireless or dsl coverage for a lot of rural americans even if its only 3 mbit instead of 20+mbit like most sububs/cities... would be slow, but that's enough for steam to download that 10-20GB game over a period of a few days...


Ideally I would retire some place where I could own like 1000 acres of land and get gigabit network with no data caps .. but I would not spend that kind of money even if I had it, which I do not ...