Retirement benefits in the United States include a set of systems designed to provide citizens of the country in old age, with disability, in case of loss of a breadwinner, and also to finance the costs of medical care for the population.
Pension benefits are provided at the federal level on the principles of social sufficiency, which means that pensions and benefits form specific standards of living for all insured regardless of their earnings, and are implemented through the federal pension insurance system, which provides for old age, disability and survivors, as well as payment within certain limits of the cost of medical care for persons with disabilities.
The federal federal pension system in the United States sets its minimum level, since receiving a federal pension is considered as an addition to individual pension savings of citizens. At the same time, special state pension insurance programs operate for workers of certain professional and social categories (civil servants, military personnel, railway workers, etc.).
In the United States, numerous forms of private insurance have become widespread. These include pension programs implemented on the basis of collective agreements and agreements of workers with employers, which are financed either from those and others, or only from employers. Pension benefits in the framework of collective and individual insurance serve as an addition to state social insurance pensions.
The federal pension insurance system is mainly financed by joint contributions from the insured and the employer, but there are certain types of security financed only from the employers.
Contributions for federal employees (officials) and employees of state organizations are paid from the state budget, but the supplementary pension insurance system provides for the payment of contributions by both the administration and the employees themselves.
Old-age pension insurance contributions are levied on a portion of earnings not exceeding a certain minimum, which is reviewed annually. Employers and employees receive premiums on an equal footing. From year to year, contribution rates increase, which is explained not only by the expansion of the types of pensions, but also by the deterioration of the demographic ratio between the able-bodied and disabled population of the country.
In addition, special attention should be paid to the fact that individuals engaged in individual entrepreneurship pay insurance premiums in double amount.
The amount of the assigned pension depends on the average amount of the employee’s earnings. When determining the size of the pension as part of its average earnings, special indices of changes that took place in the national average earnings over the years of labor activity of an employee were taken into account. In order to equalize the social situation for people with low pre-retirement income, a higher pension is established than for people with higher earnings.
Citizens who have reached retirement age and continue to work retain the right to receive pensions in full or in part if their annual earnings are lower than the amount established by law.
A disability pension is granted if the insured has lost the ability to earn a living by his or her own labor due to physical, mental and other health problems, and according to medical forecasts, such a condition will last at least one year or end in death before the expiration of this period. At the same time, the degree of disability is not taken into account since, according to American laws, a person has either lost his or her ability to work or not.
The amount of the disability pension is determined in the same way as the amount of the old-age pension. In this case, the insurance period is taken into account before the onset of disability.
The pension for the loss of the breadwinner from a general illness is assigned to the spouse of the deceased if she (he) has reached the age of 60 years (for disabled people – 50 years).