The Value We Place On The Old

Former head of the Benefits Agency, Lord Bichard, has suggested that retired people should be encouraged to do community work such as caring for the ‘very old’ or face losing some of their pension. He went on to suggest older people were a ‘negative burden on the State’. (See main article: BBC News).

Slightly to the right of Genghis Kahn, Lord Bichard’s remarks are ill thought through. Many older people already work voluntarily. A lot of charities depend on them. To suggest that benefits should be lost for those that are not working in retirement seems to miss the fact that individuals have worked a lifetime for their pension and paid taxes for their benefits.

To suggest that older people are a ‘negative burden’ is ageist and extreme. I’m sure there are some who may not deserve the State benefits they enjoy but to target those in retirement is perverse and unworthy of a country that owes so much to the generations that have gone before us.

Vive la différence?

People are living longer. Governments don’t have the money in the long term to pay pensions, so are increasing pension ages over time.

News a couple of weeks back showed this was happening again- in Bulgaria. But not in France.

With the previous government having negotiated hard to push up the state pension age from 60 to 62 (at 62, still one of the youngest retirement ages in Europe), the new French government is partially reversing the change.

It was a cheap way of getting elected- just promise to reduce pension ages again. And President Hollande has kept his promise.

Like a lot of Europe, France faces an ageing population. It also runs its pension systems on a Pay As You Go basis. So there’s less employed feeding more retired. Hollande’s estimate of the cost of pushing back on the  pension age is €3 billion a year from 2017. In reality, it will be a lot more than that.

A cheap election promise, albeit selectively applied to the population, has sent all the wrong signals. France will have to raise its pension age in the same was as other countries have in recent years (Spain, Italy, Germany, Ireland and, of course, the UK) and when it tries to, the riots will start again.

What price politics.

Retirement at 86?

It's been quite a week. None of us will see a Diamond Jubilee celebrated by our king or Queen in our lifetime again. I’m not particularly a monarchist and the Queen is not a justifiable position in a truly democratic society, but the majority of her subjects would have it no other way. I'm grateful that she has served so well and brought purpose and meaning to a ‘United Kingdom' through her service.

And how things have changed during her reign. The Actuarial Post records that 'a boy born in 1952 was expected to live to 78 and a girl to 83. A boy born in 2012 is expected to live to 91 and a girl to 94.'

Proof indeed of the need for higher retirement ages, though I doubt many reading this will still be fully employed at the age of 86 as the Queen is!