Re:No Need for Retirement When Utopia Is Around the Corner
by DanielHB on Friday October 23, 2026 @04:06PM
(#50214587)
The big thing is that the public Swedish pension is based on earned tax income, so it adjusts based on the workforce contributions. Meaning your pension goes down if the country is doing badly.
Sucks for the elderly, but it prevents the catastrophe that is France and that the US is heading into.
The main component is usually something similar to US Social Security, except that contribution rates are higher (16% in Sweden). Benefit rate (at any given retirement age) is usually close to a linear function of total contributions, adjusted for inflation. Most people expect to get most of their retirement income from that component.
Then there are supplementary components, such as voluntary or union negotiated private pensions. Some of them are a bit weird, such as the Swedish defined contribution plan with a mandatory 2.5% contribution.