This was a great read! I went on to skim the latest Pensions at a Glance [1] report from just last week, which drives your point home [2]: > When voluntary pr

This was a great read! I went on to skim the latest Pensions at a Glance [1] report from just last week, which drives your point home [2]: > When voluntary private pensions are taken into account for the whole career in Belgium, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States the average replacement, for these ten countries, is 58% for an average earner compared with 36% when only mandatory schemes are considered. The voluntary component has the largest impact on the replacement rate (more than 29 percentage points) in Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Note that this is also gross (before taxes) and since tax rates are lower (in the US at least) for this cohort during retirement, most particularly by not paying into Social Security (roughly 15% of employee plus employer contributions for people making less than $120k/yr) the numbers are understated. The section on net replacement sadly doesn't include voluntary pensions. [1] http://www.oecd.org/pensions/oecd-pensions-at-a-glance-19991363.htm http://www.oecd.org/pensions/oecd-pensions-at-a-glance-19991... [2] https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org//sites/b6d3dcfc-en/1/2/5/4/index.html?itemId=/content/publication/b6d3dcfc-en&mimeType=text/html&_csp_=a8e95975da55b0299df9e90b37215621&itemIGO=oecd&itemContentType=book# https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org//sites/b6d3dcfc-en/1/2/5/4/ind...