The Bad Old Days

‘DON’T worry about the here and now, think only of the future. Forget crime, Iraq and Cherie’s shopping habits, and look to the world yet to be.

Let’s talk about what the planet’s weather will be like in 2105. Let’s have a full and frank debate about what will happen when oil runs out. And let’s just take a moment to imagine what life will be like when we give up working and live off our pensions.

Ah, pensions, always a thorny issue. The key thing about pensions is that so few of us understand what they are or how they work. Say the word and we think of Robert Maxwell, oldies standing in line at the Post Office and single-bar fires.

But should we live long enough, pensions will get us all. The question is how long will we have to live to get one?

The Telegraph has read Lord Turner’s of Ecchinswell Pension Commission report and noted the plan to rise the pension age by stages to 68 or 69 by 2050.

And since working for longer means paying more into the giant Treasury pot, the Telegraph sums up the news in its headline: “Work till you drop and pay more tax for the privilege.”

Not that you are guaranteed to drop dead in your late 60s, the day you retire. You may die far younger, and never even qualify for your state pension.

You may live for the full three scores years and ten, and spend your pension on a happy year aboard charabancs to garden centres, TV theatres and the hospital.

But it‘s not all doom and gloom. The Times says on its front page: “Women are winners in pension shake-up.”

How so? Will childbirth gain you extra credits? Will the new pension take into account unpaid housework? Or is it simply that Lord Turner proposes that everyone gets the state pension at 75 regardless of contributions made?

Right on. This means that women who have not worked long enough, and so not paid regularly into that giant pot, will get some cash at the age of 75 – currently £82 a week.

Wow indeed. And what’s even better is that the Government will let you spend your cash any way you choose.

And once you’ve paid for your husband’s funeral, your sheltered accommodation and your clothes, you should have enough left over to buy the grandchild some sand for Christmas and treat yourself to that delicious tin of baked beans you’ve always dreamt about…’

Posted: 1st, December 2005 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink