Reason.com - Free Minds and Free Markets

Oh, to Retire in Chile

Jacob Sullum | 4.26.2005 12:30 PM


In today's New York Times, John Tierney compares the pension he'd get in Chile to what he's supposed to receive in Social Security benefits. I don't know how much Tierney makes (someone more sophisticated in these matters probably could make an estimate based on the numbers he reports), but a pension worth most of my current salary, which he implies is typical in Chile, would go a long way toward relieving my anxieties about old age. Unfortunately, the Bush administration's modest vision of "personal accounts" is not nearly as ambitious as Chile's privatization.

Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason.