June 2022
20Jun

UK. State pension age increase doubles poverty rate among pensioners

Nearly 100,000 65-year-olds fell into poverty as the state pension age rose from 65 to 66, depriving them of an income of £142 per week as the government saved £4.9bn. According to research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) the latest increase in state pension age from 65 to 66 meant that the absolute income poverty rate for 65-year-olds rose by 14 percentage points, or nearly 100,000 people, to reach 24% by late 2020. The higher state pension age also...

June 20, 2022
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17Jun

Aussie aged pensioners call for opportunity to work more hours

A growing number of Aussie seniors still working after retirement age are calling for the opportunity to work more hours without being penalised for it. A group of pensioners have told A Current Affair they're willing to help fill Australia's labour void, but the problem is that if they work too many hours, it will affect their pension. "If I work an hour over my 30 hours a fortnight, it changes my pension quite a bit," dementia specialist and senior Betty...

June 17, 2022
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08Jun

France no longer sees raising retirement age to 65 as ‘a priority’

Pension reform, a key pledge from President Emmanuel Macron’s presidential election campaign, is no longer a major priority for the government, new Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne has said. Mr Macron had said multiple times that he planned to raise the pension age in France from 62 to 65 years, and said that the move would be one of the only ways to tackle the pension deficit. However, new PM Ms Borne has now said that it is no longer seen as...

June 8, 2022
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06Jun

People in Germany retired earlier with slightly higher pensions in 2021

For years, the average retirement age in Germany has been increasing, but 2021 saw a little blip in the trend, with employees retiring a little earlier and with slightly higher pension benefits than in previous years. People retired earlier with higher pensions in 2021 On average, people working in Germany retired a little earlier last year and with slightly higher pensions, according to new figures from the Deutsche Rentenversicherung, which were made available to Bild. In total, 1,435 million employees retired in...

June 6, 2022
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May 2022
27May

Many soon-to-be retired Canadians considering changing retirement date

One-third of retired Canadians between ages 55 and 75 have retired sooner than originally planned, according to a recent RBC survey. And while the survey didn't provide insight into why people decided to take advantage of their golden years earlier, Selene Soo, director of wealth insurance at RBC Insurance, offered her guess. "If I had to wager a guess, with the last two years, it could have been that it wasn't of their own choice. Just because of businesses going under,...

May 27, 2022
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11May

Zimbabwe: Low Pensions Force Workers to Resist Retirement

Low pensions payouts by both private and public sectors to workers has forced many to shun retirement. Some workers have reportedly gone to the extent of misrepresenting their dates of birth to postpone retirement from the organisations they would have served. What makes it worse is that the ongoing hyperinflation and which is eating into incomes as well as very low remuneration by both private companies and the government. In some instances, workers who have reached pensionable age die at work due...

May 11, 2022
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April 2022
25Apr

UK. Govt urged to consider flexible early access to state pension

The government should investigate offering flexibility for people to start taking their state pension up to three years early, but at a reduced level to make it financially fair, Aegon has stated. Responding to a call for evidence into how to set the state pension age in future, Aegon called for a radical overhaul to introduce new flexibilities that would “take state pensions a small step towards private pension freedoms” and support people with more flexible multi-stage lives. Aegon emphasised the...

April 25, 2022
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04Apr

France. Macron and Le Pen battle over pensions as French election race tightens

With France's presidential race tightening ahead of Sunday's first round vote, favourites President Emmanuel Macron and far-right challenger Marine Le Pen battled over pension reform on Monday. Opinion polls have long predicted Macron will win a second term but Le Pen has tightened the gap, with polls showing the 44-year old president with only a six-point advantage in a likely run-off on April 24. Le Pen has benefited from a campaign focused on purchasing power on which she doubled down on...

April 4, 2022
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March 2022
31Mar

UK. Flexi-retirement increasingly common due to gig economy

Flexi-retirement is becoming increasingly common, as more and more retirees are opting to work part-time in the gig economy. According to a new report from Abrdn, two thirds of people retiring in 2022 do not plan on giving up work completely. This compares to just over half of those who retired in 2021 and a third of 2020 retirees. The report, which surveyed 2,000 UK adults, reveals how the “class of 2022” plan to spend their and money in retirement. A quarter said...

March 31, 2022
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Partial De-Annuitization of Public Pensions V.S. Retirement Age Differentiation. Which is Best to Account for Longevity Differences?
17Mar

Partial De-Annuitization of Public Pensions V.S. Retirement Age Differentiation. Which is Best to Account for Longevity Differences?

By Vincent Vandenberghe Extensive research by demographers and economists has shown that longevity differs across socioeconomic status (SES), with low-educated or low-income people living, on average, shorter lives than their better-endowed and wealthier peers. Therefore, a pension system with a unique retirement age is a priori problematic. The usual policy recommendation to address this problem is to differentiate the retirement age by SES. This paper explores the relative merits of partial de-annuitization of public pensions as a way of addressing...

March 17, 2022
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