That's the crooked part about the US retirement system, as far as I could gather it.
On my side of the pond, your employer deposits an X amount per month / paycheck into your retirement fund. That fund will play with it, invest it to get interest and make sure it keeps its value over time despite inflation.
When you quit your job, that retirement fund will continue to manage your money. When you get a new job, either the fund continues or it's done in another pension fund - you are given the option to either have what's in the old fund paid out, or transferred to your new one.
When you are fired before your retirement, no worries - the retirement fund is yours, not your employer's.
And TBF everyone should fight for that. There's nobody that will hire anyone until they retire anymore. US employment laws are too lax to enforce that. And if your retirement is directly linked to you having a job at age 65 or whatever the age is, you'll get fucked over one way or another.
I can’t tell what part of that you think is different in the US.
The US has three major retirement regimes:
- Defined contribution retirement funds, owned by the employee, managed by employer designated group
- Defined benefit retirement funds, which are going away or nearly gone for non-public-employees, and are causing the bankruptcy of various states because governments thought it was clever to offer public employees most of their compensation in the distant future to deceive present taxpayers about the cost of government
- An income distributing safety net for the elderly which is dressed up to pretend it’s a retirement program
Doesn’t sound so different from most European systems I’m familiar with, except for the much better health care (which dominates costs in old age, of course)
On my side of the pond, your employer deposits an X amount per month / paycheck into your retirement fund. That fund will play with it, invest it to get interest and make sure it keeps its value over time despite inflation.
When you quit your job, that retirement fund will continue to manage your money. When you get a new job, either the fund continues or it's done in another pension fund - you are given the option to either have what's in the old fund paid out, or transferred to your new one.
When you are fired before your retirement, no worries - the retirement fund is yours, not your employer's.
And TBF everyone should fight for that. There's nobody that will hire anyone until they retire anymore. US employment laws are too lax to enforce that. And if your retirement is directly linked to you having a job at age 65 or whatever the age is, you'll get fucked over one way or another.