United States 2025 report card

Performance gains in the Finances in Retirement and Health sub-indexes helped propel the United States to the number 21 position on the 2025 Global Retirement Index. Despite this modest improvement over last year’s ranking, this pales in comparison to ten years ago, when the US ranked 15th overall.

As a multi-dimensional index, the GRI rewards consistency across factors over outperformance in any one specific area. The US gains in Finances and Health were not enough to counter declines in both Material Wellbeing and Quality of Life. In the end, the US received the same 70% overall score as last year. That score is strong enough to move the country ahead relative to its peer group of 44 developed and developing countries.

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US Global Retirement Index ranking and scores

Number three for retirement security among large counties

The US ranking also underscores the challenges facing large, diverse countries as they strive to achieve retirement security. In 2025, the US ranks third, behind Germany and the United Kingdom, among the largest countries by population on the list. Simply by scale, larger countries with a wider range of opinions and broader set of constituencies find it harder to reach consensus on the many issues affecting retirement security.

Top 10 finish for Finances in Retirement

The US ranks tenth for Finances in Retirement for 2025, an improvement of five places over last year’s rankings. One key contributor is a strong score as the tax burden as a proportion of GDP fell from 27% to 25%. The country sites within the top 20 for other key indicators, including bank nonperforming loans, interest rates, and old-age dependency. However, Government Spending is a drag on overall performance, as the country struggles to find effective ways to cut spending overall.

Post-pandemic improvement buoys Health scores

The US also saw a four-point improvement in overall Health scores, which helped the country climb from 27th to 24th place for 2025. Helping the US’s improvement is a number-one ranking for Health Expenditure per capita, which it also received last year. Life expectancy also improved, as a post-pandemic rebound saw that measure increase by a full year to 77.4 years. Even as the country slips out of the top five for insured health expenditure, its overall score remained the same.

Material Wellbeing remains at 24

While the US scores for Material Wellbeing dropped by 1 percentage point, the country remained at number 24 in the subindex. Even as it ranked number six for income per capita, the country faced relative headwinds in a number of areas. Unemployment showed a slight jump from 3.9% to 4.1%, signaling a cooling labor market. Income inequality also took a hit, as the US ranking on this issued dipped to 39th.

Quality of Life

US scores in this subindex decreased by four percentage points, coming in 25th after slipping two spots from the previous year. One reason for the slide is a decline in happiness. Consistent with last year, this negative trend has been attributed largely to younger Americans and higher levels of loneliness. Gains in the water and sanitation indicator, where the US rises by 12 rankings, were not enough to stem the decline. Meanwhile the country’s air quality, biodiversity and habitat, and environmental factors rankings all remain unchanged from last year.

About the 2025 Global Retirement Index

The Global Retirement Index (GRI) is a multi-dimensional index developed by Natixis Investment Managers and CoreData Research to examine the factors driving retirement security and to provide a comparison tool for best practices in retirement policy.

The index includes International Monetary Fund (IMF) advanced economies, members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China). The researchers calculated a mean score in each category and combined the category scores for a final overall ranking of the 44 nations studied.

The views and opinions expressed may change based on market and other conditions. This material is provided for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice. There can be no assurance that developments will transpire as forecasted.

Actual results may vary.

All investing involves risk, including the risk of loss. No investment strategy or risk management technique can guarantee return or eliminate risk in all market environments. Investment risk exists with equity, fixed income, and alternative investments. There is no assurance that any investment will meet its performance objectives or that losses will be avoided.

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