The pensions system has fallen under the gaze of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, and not before time.
Retirement is a vexed subject and little discussed in the UK, where there has always been a feeling among policymakers that a higher birthrate than most developed countries and buoyant levels of immigration – almost exclusively of working-age people – meant Britain was immune to a global problem with ageing.
While a high birthrate was once a feature of the UK’s population statistics, the destabilising impact of the 2008 financial crash and government austerity since 2010 has persuaded many couples to have fewer children or remain childless. The pandemic has only made the situation worse.
After a post-Brexit-referendum slump, immigration has soared in recent years, but many of the incomers are Ukrainian or Hong Kong Chinese people and the length of their stay looks uncertain. So the UK can look forward to a dwindling number of workers supporting a growing number of retirees.
As the IFS said in a report last week explaining why it was embarking on a review of pension finance: “At the current state pension age of 66, on average men are currently expected to live for another 19 years and women for another 21 years, so the consequences of having underprovided for retirement can be substantial and have long-lasting effects.”
A government minister might be forgiven for rejecting the claim that the subject is little discussed. Haven’t ministers spent large amounts of energy and cash making sure pensioners can cope with the costs of 21st-century living?
It is certainly true the government has sought to protect pensioners’ finances. Figures from the Department for Work and Pensions show that £151bn out of £254bn-worth of welfare spending in the current financial year is on the 12 million over-65s, with £125bn alone being spent on state pensions.
“As a group, pensioners are now less likely than average to be in relative income poverty, with a rate of 18% just before the pandemic, compared with 31% for families with children,” the IFS says.
Statistics revealing that 57% of 60- to 69-year-olds and 67% of those aged 70 and over voted Tory in the 2019 general election are another incentive for Rishi Sunak’s administration, like those before it, to protect pensioner finances.
It’s the lack of discussion of other retirement issues that matters.
We have a system of private pension saving that makes incomes more unequal among retired people than across the working population. And it’s not difficult to see how that happens when tax relief favours the better off. A worker who earns more than £50,000 a year gets tax relief worth 40p in the pound on pension contributions, while someone on the average £32,000 a year receives just 20p. Why not make it the same for everyone?
The IFS also says that almost 80% of pensioners are owner-occupiers who have paid off their mortgages and therefore have few housing costs other than upkeep and repair. What it doesn’t discuss is how these “paid for” homes are usually the same ones occupied when pensioners were bringing up their families. The UK’s divorce rate being what it is – 42% – many of them will now be living alone.
Clearly, they need to move to more appropriate accommodation. And yet they have few attractive options. It is tempting to tax them for staying put because financially, as the data shows, they don’t need to move. But there is another way.
The Intergenerational Foundation thinktank has told the government that it should force developers to include homes for older people in their plans. There are plenty of family properties already in the UK’s stock of homes; it’s just that they are not occupied by families.
There is also a huge divide between rich and poor when examining the health of retirees. IFS staff approve of raising the retirement age, but acknowledge the pitfalls.
For instance, we already have millions of people too sick to work before they even reach retirement age. And too many British people seem to think that being fit and healthy in old age is a result of good decision-making. To a great extent, it is a result of genetics, manual labour and poverty. If you are predisposed to dementia, or were a heating engineer and slipped a disc, or could never afford to eat well, you are more likely to be ill in old age.
Only with a more holistic approach to discussing old age – one that goes beyond the strictly financial – can we hope to navigate a way forward that is fair, and encourages wealthy baby boomers to share their loot.
