THE CRISIS ABSOLUTELY EVERYBODY SAW COMING: Panic and Anger Spread as Europe’s Great Pension Covenant Unravels.
Concern about the sustainability of France’s welfare state has been a key driver of the protests that have shaken the country in recent weeks. It is also calling into question the tacit generational contract under which younger workers pay for their elders’ retirement.
After losing her finance job in December, Marie Caron, 61, is worried for the first time about how she will get by in old age. She can only start collecting retirement benefits at 63—or 66 to qualify for get a full pension—so she will have to find a new job before she retires, a difficult prospect in France’s rigid labor market where recruiters rarely hire older workers. Seven job interviews this year have produced nothing.
“I’ve paid a huge amount into the system and should be entitled to a decent pension,” Caron said. “Instead, I might end up on the streets.”
While American workers have long managed their own retirement portfolios to supplement a baseline Social Security check, continental Europeans were promised a comprehensive, state-guaranteed income for life.
“You f***ed up — you trusted us.”
