Pension Muddle

This posting is nothing to do with marketing (directly) so you might want to give it a miss, unless you are interested in the ‘P’ word (pensions).

Later this month the Pension Commission publishes its much awaited report. Today, the FT has an article detailing its main conclusions - a pre-publication official placing of the news story.

The bottom line seems to be a the state will pay a more generous state pension in return for a longer working life – probably a couple of more years (i.e. retirement at 67).

Now this solution might work to perfection on the mega spreadsheet the Pensions Commission uses to manipulate all of the pension’s variables but it’s going to be mighty difficult, if not impossible, to translate into the real world.

Extending the age of age of retirement does nothing to change the fact that a great lump of the population falls out employment way before their 65th birthday. All that happens is that instead of being paid a pension they are paid unemployment and social support payments.

No doubt the Pensions Commission announcement will be accompanied by worthy statements of how companies will be encouraged to employ older workers. I guess some people might believe the story, but not many. It will be interesting to see how the Government will sell these recommendations when a couple of weeks back they agreed that all public sector workers can still retire at the age of 60. Dick Stroud