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A pension is a fund into which a sum of money is added during an employee's employment years and from which payments are drawn to support the person's retirement from work in the form of periodic payments. A pension may be a "defined benefit plan", where a fixed sum is paid regularly to a person, or a "defined contribution plan", under which a fixed sum is invested that then becomes available at retirement age. Pensions should not be confused with severance pay; the former is usually paid in regular amounts for life after retirement, while the latter is typically paid as a fixed amount after involuntary termination of employment before retirement.
In the United States, Social Security is the commonly used term for the federal Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program and is administered by the Social Security Administration (SSA). The original Social Security Act was enacted in 1935, and the current version of the Act, as amended, encompasses several social welfare and social insurance programs.
The Canada Pension Plan is a contributory, earnings-related social insurance program. It forms one of the two major components of Canada's public retirement income system, the other component being Old Age Security (OAS). Other parts of Canada's retirement system are private pensions, either employer-sponsored or from tax-deferred individual savings. As of Jun 30, 2022, the CPP Investment Board manages over C$523 billion in investment assets for the Canada Pension Plan on behalf of 20 million Canadians. CPPIB is one of the world's biggest pension funds.
Unemployment benefits, also called unemployment insurance, unemployment payment, unemployment compensation, or simply unemployment, are payments made by authorized bodies to unemployed people. In the United States, benefits are funded by a compulsory governmental insurance system, not taxes on individual citizens. Depending on the jurisdiction and the status of the person, those sums may be small, covering only basic needs, or may compensate the lost time proportionally to the previous earned salary.
This article concerns proposals to change the Social Security system in the United States. Social Security is a social insurance program officially called "Old-age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance" (OASDI), in reference to its three components. It is primarily funded through a dedicated payroll tax. During 2015, total benefits of $897 billion were paid out versus $920 billion in income, a $23 billion annual surplus. Excluding interest of $93 billion, the program had a cash deficit of $70 billion. Social Security represents approximately 40% of the income of the elderly, with 53% of married couples and 74% of unmarried persons receiving 50% or more of their income from the program. An estimated 169 million people paid into the program and 60 million received benefits in 2015, roughly 2.82 workers per beneficiary. Reform proposals continue to circulate with some urgency, due to a long-term funding challenge faced by the program as the ratio of workers to beneficiaries falls, driven by the aging of the baby-boom generation, expected continuing low birth rate, and increasing life expectancy. Program payouts began exceeding cash program revenues in 2011; this shortfall is expected to continue indefinitely under current law.
The Chile pension system refers to old-age, disability and survivor pensions for workers in Chile. The pension system was changed by José Piñera, during Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship, on November 4, 1980 from a PAYGO-system to a fully funded capitalization system run by private sector pension funds. Many critics and supporters see the reform as an important experiment under real conditions, that may give conclusions about the impact of the full conversion of a PAYGO-system to a capital funded system. The development was therefore internationally observed with great interest. Under Michelle Bachelet's government the Chile Pension system was reformed again.
Social security is divided by the French government into five branches: illness; old age/retirement; family; work accident; and occupational disease. From an institutional point of view, French social security is made up of diverse organismes. The system is divided into three main Regimes: the General Regime, the Farm Regime, and the Self-employed Regime. In addition there are numerous special regimes dating from prior to the creation of the state system in the mid-to-late 1940s.
Welfare in France includes all systems whose purpose is to protect people against the financial consequences of social risks.
Defined benefit (DB) pension plan is a type of pension plan in which an employer/sponsor promises a specified pension payment, lump-sum, or combination thereof on retirement that depends on an employee's earnings history, tenure of service and age, rather than depending directly on individual investment returns. Traditionally, many governmental and public entities, as well as a large number of corporations, provide defined benefit plans, sometimes as a means of compensating workers in lieu of increased pay.
The social security system in Spain is its principal system of social protection. The concept of social security first appeared in Spain in 1883 under the Committee for Social Reform, it was expanded several times during the twentieth century and finally the right to social security was enshrined in the Spanish Constitution of 1978 under Article 41 which states "that the public authorities shall maintain a public social security system for all citizens, guaranteeing sufficient support and social benefits in situations of need, especially in the event of unemployment, and that the support and additional benefits shall be free".
Pensions in France fall into five major divisions;
Pensions in Spain consist of a mandatory state pension scheme, and voluntary company and individual pension provision.
The National Social Security Administration is a decentralized Argentine Government social insurance agency managed under the aegis of the Ministry of Health and Social Development. The agency is the principal administrator of social security and other social benefits in Argentina, including family and childhood subsidies, and unemployment insurance.
India operates a complex pension system. There are however three major pillars to the Indian pension system: the solidarity social assistance called the National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP) for the elderly poor, the civil servants pension and the mandatory defined contribution pension programs run by the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation of India for private sector employees and employees of state owned companies, and several voluntary plans.
Unemployment benefits in Spain are contributory and non-contributory. They are part of social security system in Spain and are managed by the State Public Employment Service (SEPE). Employers and employees contribute to the unemployment contingency fund and if an unemployed person fulfills certain criteria they can claim an allowance which is based on the time they have contributed and their average wage. A non-contributory benefit is also available to those who no longer receive a contributory benefit dependent on a maximum level of income.
The Pension Program for the Elderly (PPE) is a safety net, noncontributory pension program administered by the federal Ministry of Social Development (SEDESOL) in Mexico. The program aims to expand the schemes of universal social security, by providing financial support and social protection to people 65 or older who a) do not benefit from retirement or contributory pension plans or b) receive income from retirement plans or contributory pension programs that does not exceed a certain amount determined by SEDESOL.
Public pensions in Greece are designed to provide incomes to Greek pensioners upon reaching retirement. For decades pensions in Greece were known to be among the most generous in the European Union, allowing many pensioners to retire earlier than pensioners in other European countries. This placed a heavy burden on Greece's public finances which made the Greek state increasingly vulnerable to external economic shocks, culminating in a recession due to the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent European debt crisis. This series of crises has forced the Greek government to implement economic reforms aimed at restructuring the pension system and eliminating inefficiencies within it. Measures in the Greek austerity packages imposed upon Greek citizens by the European Central Bank have achieved some success at reforming the pension system despite having stark ramifications for standards of living in Greece, which have seen a sharp decline since the beginning of the crisis.
The Caixa Andorrana de Seguretat Social (CASS) is the public institution in charge of the Social Security system in Andorra. It was established in April 1968. Since the Constitution of Andorra was approved in 1993, the objective of the Andorran system is to implement Article 30: «The right to health protection and to receive benefits to meet other personal needs is recognized. To these ends, the State will guarantee a Social Security system ». That is to say, guarantee protection, in its contributory and non-contributory modality, of insured persons, direct or indirect, through the appropriate benefits. It is compulsory for salaried workers and also for those who develop an economic activity.
The Istituto nazionale della previdenza sociale is the main entity of the Italian public retirement system. All waged labourers and most of self-employed, without a proper autonomous social security fund, must be subscribed to INPS. The entity is under the supervision of the Ministry of Labour and Social Policies.
In France, the generalized social contribution is a tax created on 18 December 1990 to fund the social protection system and, since 2018, unemployment benefits.
References
- ↑ (in Spanish)Boletín Oficial de las Cortes Generales, Congreso de los Diputados, 12 de abril de 1995. Número 134