It’s a common misconception when explaining to someone what I do that I write about pensioners rather than pensions. It’s clear, just before their eyes glaze over completely, that they’re not visualising the heady world of billion pound investments in Brazilian infrastructure, but rather the journalistic equivalent of those catalogues full of incontinence pants and elasticated trousers.
It is therefore with some trepidation that I focus on the elderly for this week’s column, but I feel it’s a necessary – and timely – diversion. It follows the news that the former head of the Benefits Agency has suggested to a Lords select committee that the retired should be encouraged to work for their pensions – providing care for the very old, for example – or face losing some of their cash. Lord Bichard, a 65-yearold member of the Lords committee on public service and demographic change, suggested the move would stop older people being a “burden on the state”. “If you are old and you are not contributing in some way or another, maybe there is some penalty attached to that,” he went on. The Glaswegian comedian Jerry Sadowitz once argued the elderly were such a drain on society they should be strangled at birth. There’s clearly a fatal flaw in his proposal, but it illustrates how many people view pensioners. The idea that someone who has paid National Insurance throughout their working life should then have to undertake community service or risk losing part of their pension seems incredibly unfair. It also begs the question, what will future generations need to do in order to avoid being a “drain on society”? Let’s not forget, the baby boomers retiring now are some of the most well-off pensioners ever. Recent figures from the Office of National Statistics show 20% of retired households bring in £42,380 a year, with the average standing at around £17,700 a year. These sums are likely to be considerably more than future generations will have to live on. Auto-enrolment will help, but at current contribution levels it will go nowhere near as far as it needs to. My generation has already resigned itself to the fact we will be working to at least 70, but Lord Bichard’s proposal makes me wonder if that milestone will be nothing more than a checkpoint in our ongoing working lives. Maybe, 40 years down the line, Sadowitz will be seen as a thinker ahead of his time.
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