Regular commentator Robert J made this observation with regard to the debate over the triple lock on pensions yesterday:
In terms of communication, public understanding would benefit from widespread use of:
1. Current UK State pension as a % of average or median? earnings.
2. That % being publicised in a table of other countries in geographical Europe.
3. The estimated time it would take “triple lock” to reach a specific target %.
4. The cost of doing that by a simple cash uplift now, in 1/2/3/4 or 5 years.
5. The current cost of higher rate pension tax relief.
6. Number of people drawing pension credit, and numbers estimated to be eligible for it.
7. Cost of state provided occupational pensions for those who advise on such things and make the decisions.
8. Hyperlinks to stores selling pitchforks.
In my dreams, the Sunday politics broadcasts do a big splash on this with lots of charts and Jeremy Vine running around a VR studio making it all clear. Then the Chancellor is interviewed by an AI version of Brian Redhead and asked to justify the current system.
At first, I said I had no time to deal with this. And then, as an exercise, whilst I was working on video edits, I set Claude AI on the job, doing little more than posting the comment and adding a strict instruction that all links and data must be double-checked, and data issues must be highlighted. It came back with this. I stress this is not my work. It should not be relied on. I have not double-checked the sources. They may well be right. I cannot guarantee it, but I have that feeling from my other reading.
It did offer me data on pitchforks, but I left them out, except for a couple of links.
RESEARCH BRIEF · SEPTEMBER 2026
The UK State Pension: Eight Numbers They Don't Want You to Know
A research brief for public communication — figures, projections, data problems, and at least one hyperlink to a pitchfork retailer.
01 State Pension as a Percentage of Earnings
The full new state pension for 2026/27 is £241.30 per week, or £12,548.60 per year — a 4.1% rise under the triple lock (earnings growth was the qualifying figure). So what is that as a share of what working people earn?
|
£241.30 Full new state pension per week (2026/27) |
32.6% of median full-time employee earnings |
34.4% of average (mean) weekly earnings |
~£200pw Average pension actually received |
|---|
Basis for the calculation: ONS average weekly earnings (regular pay) ran at approximately £670–680/week in mid-2026, equivalent to roughly £35,000–35,500/year. ONS ASHE median full-time annual earnings for 2025 were £37,430, estimated at ~£38,500 by 2026 with ~3% wage growth. These two measures give the two figures above.
The pension as a share of all-worker median earnings (full- and part-time combined, ~£29,000–30,000/year) comes out around 42–43% — a figure the government would prefer you used, for obvious reasons.
|
⚠ DATA PROBLEM The choice of earnings denominator swings the answer from 27% to 43%. The OECD uses "average worker" earnings, which for the UK sits nearer £43,000–46,000 (closer to the top of the full-time distribution), giving UK replacement rates of only 28–30%. There is no single "correct" measure, but the choice should be stated every time. The honest range is 29–43% depending on method. Median full-time is arguably the most meaningful benchmark for political communication. |
|---|
|
⚠ DATA PROBLEM The full pension figure is the maximum. Average state pension received is closer to £200/week (£10,400/year), because many — especially women, carers, and the self-employed — have incomplete NI records. The true replacement rate for the average recipient is materially lower than the headline figure implies. |
|---|
02 European Comparison: Pension Replacement Rates
The table below draws on OECD Pensions at a Glance 2025 (gross replacement rates at average earnings, all mandatory schemes). The UK ranks near the bottom of geographical Europe, ahead of only Ireland among large Western European economies.
|
Country |
Gross Replacement Rate (all mandatory schemes) |
|---|---|
|
Turkey |
107% |
|
Netherlands |
95% |
|
Denmark |
80% |
|
Austria |
78% |
|
Spain |
74% |
|
Portugal |
73% |
|
Italy |
71% |
|
Hungary |
63% |
|
France |
60% |
|
Czech Republic |
58% |
|
Finland |
57% |
|
Sweden |
54% |
|
Germany |
53% |
|
Belgium |
51% |
|
Norway |
48% |
|
Poland |
37% |
|
Ireland |
34% |
|
🇬🇧 United Kingdom |
29% (state pension only) |
|
⚠ CRITICAL CAVEAT — HEALTH WARNING REQUIRED The OECD figures include ALL mandatory pension schemes — state plus mandatory workplace (occupational) pension contributions. Countries like the Netherlands and Denmark have near-universal mandatory workplace pensions that dwarf their state tier. The UK's auto-enrolment workplace pension is not mandatory in the same legal sense — it is opt-out default, not compulsion — and so is excluded from the OECD mandatory figure. This makes the UK look worse than a like-for-like comparison. Adding average auto-enrolment workplace pension accrual would raise the UK figure to roughly 38–42%. However, this does not rescue the UK's position: it still sits at or below Ireland, well below most peer countries, and the UK state pension alone is genuinely among the lowest. The distinction matters enormously when making the argument. |
|---|
03 How Long for Triple Lock to Reach a Target?
The triple lock — the higher of inflation (CPI), earnings growth, or 2.5% — is presented as protecting pensioners' living standards. But it has an architecture flaw: it is a floor, not a convergence mechanism. A pension that rises with earnings, in a world where average earnings also rise with earnings, stays at the same proportion of earnings forever.
The pension's share of earnings only improves in years when the 2.5% minimum floor exceeds wage growth. Historically, the triple lock has outpaced median earnings by roughly 0.3–0.5 percentage points per year on average — driven by those 2.5% minimum years.
|
32.6% Current pension as % of median full-time earnings |
50% A plausible target (European median) |
17.4pp Gap to close (percentage points) |
|---|
The maths is bleak. At the historical excess growth rate of ~0.4 percentage points per year over earnings, closing a 17-point gap would take roughly 40+ years. At 1% excess: about 20 years. At 2% excess: about 11 years. But 2% excess implies the pension growing 5% per year while wages grow 3% — a sustained political commitment that no government has made.
|
Target |
Gap (pp) |
At 0.4%pa excess |
At 1%pa excess |
At 2%pa excess |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
40% of median full-time earnings |
+7.4pp |
~18 yrs (≈2044) |
~8 yrs (≈2034) |
~4 yrs (≈2030) |
|
45% of median full-time earnings |
+12.4pp |
~31 yrs (≈2057) |
~13 yrs (≈2039) |
~7 yrs (≈2033) |
|
50% of median full-time earnings |
+17.4pp |
~43 yrs (≈2069) |
~18 yrs (≈2044) |
~9 yrs (≈2035) |
|
OECD European median (~54%) |
+21.4pp |
>50 years |
~22 yrs (≈2048) |
~11 yrs (≈2037) |
|
⚠ KEY PROBLEM FOR COMMUNICATION Triple lock projections cannot produce a year-certain target, because the excess growth rate is unknown and variable. The IFS and OBR model these scenarios but their own projections vary widely. The fundamental message — that triple lock alone cannot deliver convergence with European norms within any politically meaningful timeframe — is solid. The specific years above are illustrative only and should not be quoted as forecasts. |
|---|
04 Cost of a Direct Cash Uplift
Approximately 12.6 million people currently receive the state pension. Total state pension expenditure is roughly £130 billion per year in 2025/26. Average pension per recipient: ~£200/week (£10,400/year). The cost below is calculated as the percentage increase in total state pension spending required to bring the full pension rate to the target, with proportional increases across all partial pensioners.
|
Target |
Annual additional cost at steady state |
Y1 |
Y2 (if phased over 2) |
Y3 (if phased over 3) |
Y5 (if phased over 5) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
40% of median ft earnings (≈£296/week) |
+£29–30bn/yr |
+£15bn |
+£30bn ongoing |
+£10/20/30bn |
+£6/12/18/24/30bn |
|
45% of median ft earnings (≈£333/week) |
+£49–50bn/yr |
+£25bn |
+£50bn ongoing |
+£16/33/50bn |
+£10/20/30/40/50bn |
|
50% of median ft earnings (≈£370/week) |
+£69–70bn/yr |
+£35bn |
+£70bn ongoing |
+£23/47/70bn |
+£14/28/42/56/70bn |
|
ℹ WORKING NOTE These figures use total state pension spending as the base and apply a flat proportional increase. A proper Treasury costing would need to account for: (a) the split between full and partial new state pension recipients; (b) the old basic state pension cohort; (c) interaction with pension credit entitlements (a higher pension reduces pension credit spend); (d) income tax effects (state pension above the personal allowance generates tax). Offsetting effects, especially the reduced pension credit bill, could cut net cost by perhaps £5–10bn per year at the higher uplift levels. These are order-of-magnitude figures suitable for political communication, not Budget submission. |
|---|
05 Cost of Higher Rate Pension Tax Relief
Total pension tax relief in the UK for 2022/23 was £51.3 billion (HMRC statistics, via Pensions Age). Preliminary 2023/24 figures put it at approximately £52 billion — a figure described by commentators as "eye-watering" and which has grown sharply with rising incomes and the frozen personal allowance.
|
£52bn Total pension tax relief 2023/24 (HMRC) |
£14.5bn Excess cost of higher & additional rate relief above basic rate equivalent |
40–45% Tax rate at which higher earners claim vs 20% for basic rate payers |
|---|
The £14.5 billion figure — the additional cost of extending relief at 40% and 45% rather than a flat 20% — was calculated and published by Richard Murphy in September 2023 (taxresearch.org.uk). It has since been widely cited. The political significance: restricting pension tax relief to basic rate would free up enough money to almost entirely fund raising the state pension to 40% of median earnings.
|
⚠ DATA PROBLEM / POLITICAL COMPLICATION Higher rate pension relief is not solely a "benefit for the rich." It also accrues to public sector employees (NHS, teachers, civil servants) through defined-benefit scheme structures — any reform disproportionately affecting defined-contribution schemes hits private sector workers. The figures are also aggregates: HMRC does not publish a clean breakdown by income decile in its relief statistics, requiring modelling by IFS or Resolution Foundation for a proper distributional picture. The £14.5bn estimate is solid in broad terms but would benefit from the most recent HMRC relief statistics data (2024/25 figures expected late 2026). |
|---|
06 Pension Credit: Claimed vs Eligible
Pension Credit tops up weekly income to at least £218.15 (single, 2026/27) or £332.95 (couples) and is the gateway to a raft of other support including the Winter Fuel Payment. It is also chronically underclaimed.
|
~1.4m Households currently claiming Pension Credit |
~63% Take-up rate (eligible households) |
~850k Eligible households not claiming (estimated) |
~£1.7bn Estimated annual value of unclaimed Pension Credit |
|---|
Policy in Practice's Missing Out 2025 report (September 2025) found that £24 billion of means-tested benefits go unclaimed annually — of which pension credit forms a significant component. The Independent Age briefing (2022) found roughly one in three eligible older people was not claiming.
DWP's own official take-up statistics (released annually with an 18-month lag) have suggested take-up by caseload of around 62–66%, with notable geographic and demographic variation: non-claiming tends to be concentrated among homeowners, those with modest savings just above thresholds, and those with limited digital access or awareness.
|
⚠ DATA PROBLEM The DWP take-up statistics are consistently 18–24 months old by the time of publication. The 2026/27 eligibility changes (particularly the Winter Fuel Payment income test adding to the policy landscape) have likely affected both eligibility numbers and claiming behaviour in ways not yet captured in published statistics. The Independent Age, Age UK, and Policy in Practice estimates for unclaimed amounts vary. Treat any specific figure as a reasonable range estimate, not a precise count. |
|---|
07 Pensions for Those Who Advise on and Make the Decisions
The people designing pension policy — civil servants, MPs, senior officials — are overwhelmingly members of defined benefit (final salary or CARE) public service pension schemes. These are the same schemes that have largely been closed to private sector workers since the 1990s. The contrast is acute.
|
~£12bn Teachers' pension scheme estimated annual employer contributions |
~£13bn NHS pension scheme employer contributions per year |
~£7bn Civil Service pension employer contributions per year |
£2 trillion+ Total unfunded public service pension liability (actuarial, OBR) |
|---|
Total annual government pension payments across all public service schemes run at approximately £60–70 billion per year gross, partially offset by employee contributions and tax receipts. The OBR's Public service pension payments (net) analysis tracks the ongoing net cash position.
The Taxpayers' Alliance Mandarin Millionaires report (2025) found that the most senior civil servants accumulate pension pots equivalent to several million pounds — unreachable in any comparable private sector defined contribution scheme.
The MPs' pension: Members of Parliament receive an employer contribution equivalent to roughly 28% of salary into the Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund — substantially more generous than the private sector average employer auto-enrolment contribution (typically 3–6% of qualifying earnings).
|
⚠ DATA PROBLEM No single published figure captures "total annual taxpayer cost of state-provided occupational pensions for public servants." The OBR net figure, employer contribution statistics from each scheme's annual report, and the actuarial liability are three different measurements of the same reality, none of which tells the complete story on its own. Gross employer contributions across all major schemes sum to approximately £35–45 billion per year — a figure that dwarfs the cost of raising the state pension to 40% of median earnings — but this requires triangulation across multiple scheme reports and should be verified against the most recent DWP, HM Treasury, and OBR publications. |
|---|
Key Sources & Further Reading
OECD Pensions at a Glance 2025 — Gross Replacement Rates
ONS Average Weekly Earnings — September 2026 Bulletin
Full New State Pension 2026/27: £241.30/week
IFS — The Triple Lock: Uncertainty for Pension Incomes and Public Finances
IFS — What do you need to know about the triple lock?
Pensions Age — Pension Tax Relief Totals £51.3bn in 2023/24
Richard Murphy — Ending Higher Rate Pension Tax Relief Would Raise £14.5bn
Policy in Practice — Missing Out 2025: £24 Billion Unclaimed
House of Commons Library — Pension Credit Current Issues
OBR — Public Service Pension Payments (Net)
TaxPayers' Alliance — Mandarin Millionaires 2025
State Pension Maximum Payouts Europe 2026 — Calquify
Age UK — Benefit Take-Up Briefing May 2024
Agricultural Grade — Countrywide Farmers
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Wow! Thank-you.
That could be trimmed down nicely for letters to MPs and newspapers. I’ll have a go.
Our masters should hang their heads in shame – for their mendacity, cowardice, greed and cruelty.
As for pitchforks, I like this one (although not from Amazon).
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bulldog-Prong-Metal-Handle-Manure/dp/B00J06DFTI/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.qr6BJ2gV6pqjOjadpPu2roS3BgrTV2S45eL-5OP1KG-iuNZBhupdj7EEXry84yO-wiq0iQoQxnQ4M389QWxmS1bWilhxpWSMPFYGzFBdgjueN30SnQ5T8Xmd4zNFgRgxfy8iNanoS8n-vklJAeW90IJ182RJCysdo7svh2qXiw_gLAXi5f8lqaCCHfSi3Ys_ccdlEyLXtvAjZIMJpDT8Lg.GEaVMfQFywhoirdjcw9aUe_CEM1KuV4U1LCt6WwbDLQ&dib_tag=se&keywords=pitchfork&qid=1789630196&sr=8-4
I had a mind-numbing 4 weeks using one of those on a Walls bacon pig unit back in the early 1970s during veterinary training, (which also supplied fat for Walls ice cream). By the end I could weigh a heavy hog to 10kg accuracy, just by looking at it but had breathed in an awful lot of ammonia.
Once again thanks to you and to Claude, bless his silicon socks.
Many thanks to Robert J, Claude A I and you for a most thought provoking article!
So here are some questions resulting from provoked thoughts!
Which groups in our society might comprise “They”?
Might the British public be victims of a large and deep socio-economic deception/fraud? Might it only be coincidental that socio-economics is/appears to be backgrounded in the National Curriculum?
Excellent, and thanks to Robert J.
It somewhat mirrors, but much more extensively, my own thoughts after reading yesterday’s blog – though I didn’t actually post (or indeed read later comments). Which were basically that the triple lock problem would be solved simply by a political decision of what “target” pension the country wants, on the basis that once the inflationary ratchet had got the state pension to that point it would revert to being adjusted by wage inflation.
My guesstimate yesterday, without the benefit of AI or even the back of an envelope, was that a target state pension of 60% of median after-tax earnings would be appropriate. That probably aligns with the numbers discussed above. I rejected a target based on international comparison on the basis it was too vulnerable to political changes elsewhere.
I was discussing this with my oldest son last night.
Its interesting looking at these figures how small the growth expressed as a percentage of average earnings the ‘triple lock’ gives the state pension.
Given that the State Pension is 5% of GDP is doesnt look unaffordable and of course unlike private schemes we have some level of control over the cost.
Agreed
And presumably civil servants in relevant departments will already be familiar with all, or nearly all, of these figures, even if the Chancellor of the Exchequer isn’t?
Maybe…
This needs to go viral. I wish I had the time……………..
What a bunch of niggardly swine we are governed by.
I am a member of a local authority pension scheme – if I retired now, I’d be on double the state pension but need to put in a few more years yet. I have paid into that scheme for nearly 25 years. The final salary pension I started on was meddled with by New Labour whilst keeping to Tory PSBR rules in 2003 to reduce the benefits that I was entitled to. I haven’t voted for Labour since. You don’t take money from working people – are you listening Andy?
As someone in such a scheme, I consider myself lucky, but I’ve also worked hard. I want others to be treated like me – I really do – we should all have a decent pension. But there is no reason why the state cannot copy local authority schemes for its citizens? The bad treatment of pensions by the private sector is just used as leverage to level down the public sector pensions. If Labour mess with the protection of pensions, then they are nationalizing misery.
Looking at the parliamentary pension pot info makes me see red. Our politicians are in on it – too many are grifters – being rewarded for taking from us. That is not democracy.
Final thought – no wonder this country is addicted to squeezing profit out of debt, assets and prices because there is so little real money to spend in the economy and niggardly pensions are part of that formula. ‘Fucked up’ does not even begin to describe this for me. I tire of this place. Don’t you?
PSR,
I’m shocked that it was possible to change your pension arrangements, surely they form part of your contract of employment signed when you accepted the job?
I joined my former UK employer’s guaranteed benefits scheme in 1983 on what now seem very generous terms (I was utterly clueless at the time… There’s a pension scheme? That’s nice.) During my 21 years with that corporation the terms for new employees changed twice, reducing benefits each time but my terms were and still are the same as in 1983, much to my great relief.
It is possible to redesign the whole pension system. There are proposals to do this for a future post independence Scottish pension system. Basically, the flat rate state pension is replaced with an earnings related state pension and instead of having hundreds of separate workplace pension schemes (both public and private sector) there is a single National Pension Fund which is designed as an earnings related scheme (i.e. defined benefit), which abolishes DC 2nd pensions. The architecture of this system can then be tuned to deliver whatever target overall replacement rate you want (its a policy choice). So suppose the chosen replacement rate is 80% of earnings that can be delivered by a variety of permutations e.g. state 30%; NPF 50% or 40%-40% etc. The proposals (“Pensions in an Independent Scotland” and the related “A People’s Wealth Fund – investing the NPF”) can be found on the Scottish Currency Group website at Publications repository – Scottish Currency Group | Scottish Currency Group
Thanks, Jim
All of this and your original post are helpful. When I write a letter to the paper about state pension, I try to get in the idea that any reduction now will affect future pensioners. It seems a lot of younger people have no faith that the state pension will be there for them, (it is seen as a burden due to the story that it is funded by income tax) while they struggle to pay much into workplace pensions.
So thanks for more angles on this, and the stats, with their caveats.
Thank you
From the look of it, capping defined benefit pension schemes paid for by the public sector, or making them somewhat less generous, plus reducing higher and top rate tax rebates for private sector contributions would have a significant effect on the government finances.
Meanwhile, the state pension doesn’t end up looking like the issue, although it might also be worthwhile looking at average spending on property and household incomes, because for some like myself when I get older it would be my single income that’s currently covering all expenses but my partner would be eligible for a full pension as well.
The post-housing, net financial position that matters for ageing households. If there are 2 state pensions and any earnings no longer accrue National Insurance, then there may be quite a favourable position. Pensioners also won’t generally be raising children.
However, it’s equally clear some pensioners have a pretty comfortable balance with state and other pensions plus full or part time working taxed without National Insurance and no mortgage, while others struggle on the state pension. Breakdowns by decile for working and non-working would help.
I’m also not sure comparison to full-time working is fair because those only able to find part-time work are part of the working age population, but comparing to European countries the question is what basis their percentages are drawn from to have as close to like-for-like comparisons as possible.
I agree that averages conceal enormous differences between pensioners. Some have substantial occupational pensions, housing wealth and earnings; others depend almost entirely on the state pension. That is precisely why attacking the state pension is such a badly targeted policy.
I would also look much harder at the extraordinary tax subsidies given to private pensions, particularly to those on higher incomes, before reducing the basic pension available to everyone.
Household composition and housing costs certainly matter when comparing living standards, and international comparisons must be made on a genuinely like-for-like basis.
But none of that changes my central point: pensioner inequality is an argument for addressing inequality among pensioners, not for weakening the state pension on which those with the least depend most.
All I would add is that you don’t get the LGPS pension by not paying into it. You have to pay in – sacrifice your salary. Colleagues who have been in my pension scheme longer than me will end up with more income as a pensioner than as a worker in some cases. But for the lower paid staff this sacrifice can be onerous whilst working, and if you have kids and a mortgage and are facing increasing living costs the same can apply.
Then there is the political football that pensions can be. Labour Councillors where I work voted to take the Tory pension contributions holiday back in the day because of inadequate central government funding for Council services. Then we were told the pension pot for our city had a huge hole in it, which led to yet more changes. What a way to manage something eh? Public sector pay cuts/stagnation due to austerity has also affected the viability of some schemes.
But I fully agree with you – there has to be a better way and I will say again that I consider myself to be lucky. I’m not moaning – yet!
One thing I hear a lot of from pensioners is how extra income over the annual state pension is taxed. Many think this unfair – a sort of lower rate pension tax relief (although I also mention that it would be nicer if the Government controlled inflation better)?
Having worked in the insurance and pensions world for many years as a fund manager, pensioneer trustee and later an IFA, I found this very interesting. Unluckily the bulk of my own pension was with Equitable Life and I lost most of it when they collapsed in the late 1990s.
This week I reached 80 and I received two bulky letters in the post, one from DWP Wolverhampton, the other from my local council. My state pension has been increased by 25p per week – no less, and my council tax deduction has been adjusted to deal with this increase in income and has been reduced by £1 per week so I am 75p a week worse off. You cannot make this up!
Utterly bizarre!
As a note of caution, illustrating that LLMs don’t understand, just regurgitate with some biased randomness, the European Comparison: Pension Replacement Rates table, has a preamble saying
The UK ranks near the bottom of geographical Europe, ahead of only Ireland among large Western European economies.
and then the table has the UK at the bottom, and Ireland just above it.
As pensioner asked my AI how much extra cash I would have once it had accounted for the lost in purchasing power of my state pension since the last rise and the potential tax I would pay. The answer it suggested was about 32.24 per annum , which is landing price for about 10 small cod such is the real price of political fish.
Here in Australia the state pension is means tested. Even though I have reached the pension age and have been an Australian citizen, working, now retired, and paying my taxes for over 20 years I receive nothing (which is fine by me) partly because I do receive a small state pension from the UK based on NI contributions made before I jumped ship.
The idea of a defined benefits, final salary based state pension to replace all the disparate state/private arrangements that currently exist sounds like an excellent plan, though it must contain a reasonable lower limit and not be used as an excuse to exclude additional payments to those who have reasonable need of them. Whether or not it should be means-tested to take account of other income is a separate question.
The proposal is not to replace all 2nd pensions with a state earnings related pension (SERP). The proposal is to combine a SERP with a National Pension Fund which is what replaces all the hundreds of separate employer based schemes. It also includes provision for a Guaranteed Minimum Pension. The design of the contributions structure is progressive so contribution rates increase according to earnings and those on the lowest levels of pay pay nothing but are still entitled to a pension. The details of the proposals are on the SCG website at the link I posted previously.
When Thatcher set out to destroy socialism, she did it by destroying the social contract: when the State *contracts* to care for us when we cannot be productive members of society.
We now, in my opinion, see that care and support as an entitlement, and disregard the second part of the contract: when we provide the labour, by hand and brain, to enable the economy to use all its resources for the benefit of all.
We appear to be demanding more and more years of our lives to being paid by the State to not work.
1948: F = 24%, M = 16% of adult life in retirement
2025: F = 26%, M = 24% of adult life in retirement.
As our life expectancy increases, so does our demand to “not work”. A whole quarter of our adult lives are being lived unproductively.
When one adds in the unproductive 18 early years receiving State support, the figures show that in 2055 women will have depended on State support for 44.5% of their life, men for 44.3% of their life.
Is that a fair, decent balance as a basis for an economy? I don’t know, but my gut feels that it isn’t.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/lifeexpectancies/bulletins/pastandprojecteddatafromtheperiodandcohortlifetables/2016baseduk1981to2066
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/spol.12740
Interesting, but what are you proposing, less education and a longer working life?
I know I’d like to see an end to moaning about the rise in pension age!
It was introduced from age 70, with a 5-bob-a-week increase at age 80. It was to end the Poor Law as a refuge for those *no longer able to work*. We’ve forgotten the reason and that colours our thinking on Pensions.
We can now retire with years and years of active life ahead for most of us.
What is a fair length of working life? Do we need variable retirement ages according to our health? Or our job? Could we stagger our full retirement by dropping to part-time hours? Could we be employed training NEETs where employers cannot or will not invest in the future?
Would the economy be healthier if we spent a lot more of our disposable income during our working lives instead of retiring to Spain or taking a Saga cruise around the world?
They’re all questions that no-one seems to want to answer, because of that sense of personal entitlement. I don’t have an answer, but we’re not asking the questions either.
Oh, and no, always more education – if it is desired!
I have difficulty answering this. As is clear, I am working in my official retirement and hope to do so for many years to come. I also work hard – often 60 hours a week. But I am fortunate with my health, energy and probable autistic ability to focus attention. So, I know that fixed retirement ages do not necessarily make sense.
That said, why assume that longer life must mean longer employment? Increased productivity should surely allow us to enjoy more life outside paid work.
And how do we create a fair retirement age? A builder, nurse or care worker may experience work very differently from someone in a comfortable professional job. Health varies enormously too.
I favour choice: opportunities for part-time work, mentoring, and continued employment for those who want them, but also a decent pension that lets people stop working when they need or wish to. All that being said, retirement is not an entitlement we should resent. It is one of the benefits that economic progress should make possible.
This one will take some more thinking, in other words.
I confess that this sort of arithmetic and language, makes me uncomfortable.
For unskilled manual labour, in earlier years
14 to 65 = 51 years of very hard physical graft followed by a low income retirement and an early death.
Me, 5 yr veterinary degree – worked from 23 to 65 = 42yrs. Still alive and healthy, early 70s.
We curently are aiming at an SRA of 68 in UK.
So, for non-manual graduate work after a masters or PhD or a medical/vocational degree.
23 to 68 = 45yrs work followed by a longer healthy publicly subsidised (tax subsidised private pension plus state pension) comfortable retirement.
For an unskilled school leaver today,
18 to 68 = 50 years work (or unemployment or disability) followed by an earlier death than their graduate retiree equivalent, following a low income, lightly subsidised retirement, with collapsing public services, but unaffordable private alternatives.
What is the politically, and socially just solution? The one thing the sums tell us is that we CAN solve this, but so far, we WON’T, because of wrong assumptions, wrong choices and terrible economics.
I’d also like to see a definition of “productive”. I think I’m still productive, but I’m not in paid work, either as a carer or in my community.
A politics of care needs to radically challenge the epistemology and etymology around work and retirement, productivity, and affordability as well as radically reforming the structures.
You highlight the debate we need.
A few days ago, a journalist I usually disagree with wrote a piece in favour of keeping the triple lock on state pensions. Ignoring the neolib economic stance, I found some sympathy for the piece, as it reminded us that not all pensioners are on cruises, many are caring for grandchildren, volunteering, being good friends and neighbours. I regularly meet a man with a rollator who spends his days litter picking, something the council doesn’t have much money for. There are plenty of ways to contribute outside of employment.
I am in favour of having some time, in good health, to enjoy no longer working nine to five. In Norway, people in physically demanding jobs like construction and nursing, are entitled to state pension earlier than those sitting at desks.
Richard wrote in reply to Anne Cruise:
“I favour choice: opportunities for part-time work, mentoring, and continued employment for those who want them, but also a decent pension that lets people stop working when they need or wish to. All that being said, retirement is not an entitlement we should resent. It is one of the benefits that economic progress should make possible.”
Nothing to disagree with here but there still needs to be enough of an incentive for enough people to get a job for enough of their life to actually do the work needed to provide the services we all want. Anne makes a valid point that as the ratio of years worked to years retired increases there will be proportionately fewer people to do the work required to make society function. Robots that can empty bedpans is one solution but not making it too comfortable to retire early if you could easily continue working must also be part of the equation. As ever, deciding where the balance of opposing forces should sit will keep us writing for a long time to come.