Pension Pillar
  
A “pension pillar” is an element of the pension framework described by the World Bank and adopted by many countries, mostly in Europe. There are actually five pension pillars, and each pillar represents a different type of pension format. According to the World Bank, the point of this pension pillar framework is to help policymakers and financial institutions make sure they’re addressing issues related to retirement, poverty, and old age in their societies.
So what are these pillars and what do they mean? Here’s a quick and dirty breakdown:
Zero pillar—This pillar requires no pay-in and provides pensioners with the minimum level of financial and social service support to keep them alive.
First pillar—People contribute, and then, when they retire, they receive a pension that is equal to part of their prior working income (there are some who say first-pillar pension plans should be mandatory for all working people).
Second pillar—Individual savings accounts that exist to help with retirement expenses.
Third pillar—Voluntary pay-in pension plans that will provide more financial stability in our golden years than first-pillar plans.
Fourth pillar—Relying on our network of friends and loved ones to carry the costs of whatever we need, but can’t afford in our old age.
The five-pillar framework isn’t a recipe. Countries don’t receive exact instructions on how to create their own successful national retirement plan soufflé. But what it does do (at least, the World Bank is hoping this is what it does) is gently nudge the folks in power toward thinking more about the long-term needs of a society that is living longer and longer. If we as lawmakers and retirement planners take a more holistic view of what our country offers for retirees—in other words, if we evaluate our nation’s retirement resources in terms of each of the five pillars—then it might help us come up with better and more useful options and plans for our own citizens.
Related or Semi-related Video
![Finance: What is Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation?](https://media1.shmoop.com/video/thumbnails/COURSE.FINANCE.960_770x433.jpg)
Finance: What is Pension Benefit Guarant...0 Views
Finance Allah shmoop What is the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation
Well the PBGC is a notionally independent agency of the
federal government Its goal is to protect the retirement incomes
of nearly forty million American workers in nearly twenty four
thousand private sector defined benefit engine plans And that mission
statement is right off their website The agency was set
up in nineteen seventy for is part of Arisa Employee
Retirement Income Security Act to protect defined benefit plans That
one were there Benefit is a huge deal because it's
non identical Twin sister is a defined contribution plan The
big diff well in a defined contribution pension plan employees
contribute some percentage of their income to their retirement pension
and the employer matches it and that's it The money
gets invested in the stock market and goes up and
down and up and down but over time mostly up
And then the employees retires Decades later owning whatever the
market or their investments that they risk say they young
period End of story But in a defined benefit plan
the employer essentially guarantees a minimum amount of invested return
That is the big boss Usually the federal government with
its union employees on taxpayer dollars then guarantees a raid
of say nine percent a year to the employee retiring
in the form of a minimum monthly draw from their
pension that the employees can take out If the market
goes through a really bad spell well then it's up
to the company to make up the difference to that
employees The people who framed a Risa knew of the
likely issue that the guaranteed investment return could end up
bankrupting states and or the country So PBGC was formed
and it helps a lot of people like one point
five million who ultimately rely on PBGC to bail out
their pensions And if you're one of those people while
you can expect to get something like sixty five thousand
dollars annually or about fifty three hundred bucks a month
assuming you retire at sixty five So if you retire
early well those cheques arriving in your mailbox won't be
quite so heavy Retire late in while the numbers go
up And maybe the best part is that the U
S taxpayer doesn't need to get all up in arms
Since the dough used to manage PBGC doesn't come from
John Q Taxpayer but rather from the private worlds employers
So in forty or fifty years PBGC may be your
best friend but until then well you're invisible Rabbit pal 00:02:30.543 --> [endTime] will be with you through thick and thin
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