the thinning of the welfare state:
Some 47 million Americans have no health insurance, and the number grows daily. Health insurance is rapidly becoming unaffordable. Premiums rose an average of 73 percent in just five years (2000-2005.)
(...) Social Security replaces, on average, 41 percent of workers' pre-retirement income. Most experts agree that, to maintain something close to the lifestyle you lived in your working years, you need retirement resources that replace 75 to 90 percent of your wages.
(...) The employer attack on pensions has been highly successful. There were 95,000 such plans in 1980; it was down to 85,000 in 1993, and fell to less than 27,000 in 2005. Today only 21 percent of the workforce is covered by defined benefit pensions-the most secure type of employment-based retirement plan.