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ing Americans withdraw $70 billion annually from retirement accounts -- an amount that's 40 percent of the $175 billion put in. Employers add an additional $118 billion.
• Retirement specialist Teresa Ghilarducci of the New School for Social Research in New York says the voluntary plans "work for a robot with an Excel spreadsheet," not for people trying to pay bills and care for children who aren't thinking decades ahead to retirement.
• NUDGING WORKERS TO SAVE
• Several countries are trying to force -- or nudge -- workers to save more for retirement.
• Australia went the furthest, the soonest. It passed a law in 1993 that makes retirement savings mandatory. Employers must contribute the equivalent of 9.25 percent of workers' wages to 401(k)-style retirement accounts. (The required contributions will rise to 12 percent by 2020.) Australians can't withdraw money in their accounts before retirement.
• When politicians were debating the plan, only about half of Australians supported it. Within six months, approval rose to 85 percent. The difference: Workers started receiving statements that showed retirement savings piling up, says Nick Sherry, who helped design the program as a cabinet minister.
• In October 2012, Britain required employers to start automatically enrolling most employees in a pension plan. At the start, contributions must equal at least 2 percent of earnings, half provided by employers. By 2018, contributions must rise to 8 percent, of which 3 percentage points will come from employers.
• In 2006, the United States encouraged companies to require employees to opt out of a 401(k) instead of choosing to opt in. That means they start saving for retirement automatically if they make no decision.
• EASING THE PAIN
• Rebounding stock prices around the world and a slow rise in housing prices are helping households recover their net worth. In the U.S., retirement accounts -- defined-contribution and defined-benefit plans combined -- hit a record $12.5 trillion the first three months of 2013, according to the Urban Institute. They've gone higher since.
• However, net worth is merely climbing toward a level considered inadequate at its peak in 2007. Boston College's Center for Retirement Research says the recovery in housing and stock prices still leaves 50 percent of American households at risk of being unable to maintain their standard of living in retirement. That's down from 53 percent in 2010 but up from 44 percent before the Great Recession hit in 2007.

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