England is getting smarter. (A little)

[gaijindabe]

Say what you want abou the right to carry a knife - this is reality. Taking statins and living longer? Sorry, keep working you lazy buggers!

Gov't calls for raising retirement age to 68 under pensions overhaul by Lachlan Carmichael
2 hours, 51 minutes ago

LONDON (AFP) - The government has unveiled a blueprint for the biggest overhaul of the nation's pension system in more than half a century, with a proposal to raise the retirement age to 68 by 2044.

The Labour government's package will form part of an on-going debate in Europe about the need to reform state pension systems to cope with the rising cost of rapidly ageing populations.

"If we can crack this as a country, we will be doing something probably most countries have not been able to do," Prime Minister Tony Blair told reporters just before his government presented its plans to parliament.

The government proposes to hike the retirement age to 66 from 2024 and raise it to 68 from 2044, to help pay for restoring the link between the basic state pension and earnings from as early as 2012, subject to affordability.

Former prime minister Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government broke the link in 1981, meaning pension rises now track the level of annual price inflation, not earnings.

But with average earnings tending to rise at a faster pace than retail prices, pensioners have become poorer relative to workers, campaigners argue.

In the private sector, British men currently must work until 65 before receiving a state pension. Women must work until 60, the same age as all public workers.

"No one over the age of 47 today will be affected by these changes," Work and Pensions Secretary John Hutton told the House of Commons as the government's proposals were unveiled.

The draft package was unveiled in response to a report by an independent committee that has called for an overhaul of the nation's pension system.

Hutton, who described it as the biggest pensions shakeup since the 1940s, said the changes would help "entrench a new savings culture" to encourage people to build retirement savings.

About 12 million people are currently failing to pay enough into a pension, and the plans call for introducing a National Pensions Saving Scheme into which workers would be automatically enrolled in 2012, though they can opt out.

Individuals will pay in five percent of their salary, with one percent made up of tax relief, while employers will contribute three percent.

The government also proposes to reduce the number of people on the means-tested Pension Credit from 40 percent now to around a third by 2050.

The number of years needed to qualify for a full basic state pension will be reduced to 30 from 39.

Under the reforms, the government said, the number of women entitled to a full basic state pension should increase from just 30 percent now to 70 percent by 2010.

The current value of the British state pension for single pensioners is 84.25 pounds per week. A married couple receives 134.75 pounds.

The government said that by 2050 an average earner should retire with a state pension of 340 pounds a week.

Despite some criticism, the package was broadly welcomed by business groups, trade bodies and pensioner organizations, particularly because it restored the earnings link.

The group Age Concern said the plan would do little to help the 1.7 million poorest current pensioners, while the Confederation of British Industry warned that mandatory pension contributions could hurt small firms.

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber, the leader of the biggest trade union, said: "Ministers can be proud of a document that looks like it can be the foundation of a new pensions settlement.

The opposition Conservative Party welcomed the "key elements" but criticized the caveat that the restoration of the earnings link in 2012 is subject to affordability.

[Joeaksa]

Every country in the world will eventually be forced to do the same thing. There just is no way that the people working can support the "baby boomers" as they retire, the numbers are too great.

The earlier that a country does it the better chance that they will be able to keep their standards of life and survive.

[gaijindabe]

Actually Joe - this is the great unspoken part of the whole immigration debate. Do we raise the retirement age - or do we prop up the boomers with wholesale immigration?

As Social Security is the sacred cow of American politics - it looks as though the later is being chosen for us..

But what happens when all the newcomers are ready to retire?? We are just pushing the ball further down the field with no real solution..

[artplumber]

No, we change the system so you get what you put in with a reasonable fudge so there is a "floor". It's ludicrous to predicate our economy and future on continued population growth, when the resources of the planet are limited.

[1967 R50/2]

Then there is the "Logan's Run" option.....

[gaijindabe]

Soylent Green is tasty.