It seems that Business Times is trying to reverse the negativity of its report on retirement funds gap yesterday.
Today, it reported on the findings of yet another retirement-related survey, this time by AXA Group. The AXA Retirement Scope 2007 survey found that Signaporeans are 2nd in terms of monthly savings for retirement ($824), among 16 countries surveyed.
A simple calculation shows that the $824 figure is derived possibly by taking $2,497 as the average gross monthly income. That is, the survey respondents from Singapore earns a gross salary of $2,497 per month and 33% of this is $824 (employer CPF contribution is 13% while employee’s is 20%).
With this seemingly high retirement savings, it’s little wonder that Singapore is ranked 4th in the same survey in terms of disposable income ($2,122). “But this finding could be skewed by the survey’s high ‘no answer’ rate,” added BT.
If it’s really $2,122 in today’s dollars, then I think many people will be quite ok.
After looking at the survey report, I also found that:
- Singapore also ranks well in terms of the percentage of respondents describing themselves as healthy.
- 4 in 10 retirees hold a paying job. (My gosh… we like to work!)
- Close to 80% of retirees claim their quality of life has improved. (It’s probably because of this point that BT concluded that Singaporeans are “positive”.)
- But 48% say their reitrement income is not sufficient. (I’m not sure if BT had looked at this. Do you consider this “positive”?)
