Friday, September 20, 2013

Too poor to retire? Work until you drop under the Tories

Great video from TUC Touchstone showing Senior policy officer Richard Excell  explaining the state we are in - "September’s employment figures showed the number of people in employment rising. However, I’ve recorded this video to show that this increase is entirely due to rising numbers of people over retirement age in employment, many of whom cannot afford to retire. At the same time, average wages are falling in real terms, and living standards are falling".

5 comments:

JD said...

Is this not what pensions are supposed to be - work until you drop. Its no accident that when they were invented the retirement age was set at average life expectancy.

For all the wingeing we do about state pension age going up its still a long way from 80.75 years of age that we can currently expect to live to.

The idea that pensions are there to give you 20 years to tend your garden and watch Countdown in the afternoon is a recent phenomenon

John Gray said...

Hi JD

The original state pension was to keep you out of the work house in old age.

The modern purpose of pensions is to give you choices while you are fit enough to have a choice.

Many people now have to work past retirement age to live decently.

It costs more to rent a one bedroom flat above a chicken shop in West Ham ward than you will get in the new Universal pension.

Eventually most people will not have a choice about to work or not due to health and will need to survive on an adequate income.

Pension provision is currently rubbish for most workers and the wages they earn in work are often inadequate to be able to save enough.

Anonymous said...

The first Blair governments were more than good to most pensioners but at the time my mother was receiving extra premium pension because my dad was ex army and had a war pension. When labour increased the pensions…circa 98-99 ‘not really sure but do remember, my mothers pension became equal to every others pension, she didn’t get the premium and felt betrayed by Labour. Why did Blair steal my mothers’ premium? Sorry… but another unforgivable policy enacted by the last Labour government.

John Gray said...

Hi anon

I can see how your mother thought this but I can't agree. It was one of the great achievements of the last Labour Government that they introduced pension credit and took millions of pensioners out of miserable poverty.

The problem is not even means testing which meant your mum didn't get more than anyone else but an inadequate state and employer pension provision.

Which auto-enroling and universal pensions will not resolve at current levels.

Alan Ji said...

Are we to assume that Mr Excell is a bad hand with spreadsheets?