Pension cuts and inequality wiping out retirement for American workers (tags)
For a growing number of US workers, dreams of a decent retirement are quickly evaporating as companies shift retirement costs onto workers, in the form of deductions from already declining wages, in order to maintain profits in a competitive global economy. In the wake of the post-World War II business boom, US workers were granted certain limited concessions in a three-legged system of retirement security that included individual savings, government programs and private employer pensions. Between the 1940s and the 1980s, private pensions with a guaranteed payout (also known as defined-benefit pensions), became a standard component of compensation for a large section of the American workforce.