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White House calls retirement savings
summit
By Michelle Samaad
Bankrate.com
  Washington,
D.C.--Reacting to figures that place
the United States among the lowest ranked countries when it comes
to saving for retirement, the White House announced that President
Bill Clinton will host a national summit on retirement savings June
4 and 5.
"Figures
on our personal savings rate are quite troubling. Both by standards
of recent history and by the standard of international comparison,
our personal performance doesn't stand up well," said Lawrence
Summers, deputy treasury secretary in a statement released today.
The
U.S. household savings rate — the proportion of disposable
income put into savings — is one of the lowest among the world's
developed economies.
Between
1990 and 1995, Americans saved only 7.2 percent of their disposable
income compared with Italy's 15.9 percent and Japan's 13 percent.
The British also ranked low with citizens saving only 6.1 percent
of their disposable income.
People
are living longer, saving less
Summers
said Americans must realize that people are living longer in part
due to advances in medicine. With retirement lasting longer than
ever before for most people, they need to start saving more, he
said.
The
retirement savings summit was established by the Savings Are Vital
to Everyone's Retirement — SAVER
— Act passed in Congress last November. The summit is one of
several initiatives set up by Clinton to promote retirement savings.
A
survey released last year by the Employee
Benefit Research Institute, a research firm based in Washington
D.C., found that less than a third of Americans have even tried
to calculate how much of a nest egg they will need for retirement.
Less than 20 percent of Americans say they are very confident they
will have enough money to live comfortably throughout retirement.
During
the summit, more than 100 participants from the private and public
sector will convene in the Capitol to develop new ways promote pensions
and individual saving plans.
Topics
on the tentative agenda include identifying barriers that hinder
employees from setting aside enough savings for retirement and employers
for not providing enough assistance in that area; developing a broad-based
education program to encourage Americans to save more; and suggesting
legislative recommendations to promote savings.
Follow-up
summits are scheduled for 2001 and 2005.
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