{"id":63,"date":"2013-12-05T22:55:32","date_gmt":"2013-12-05T22:55:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/management\/?p=63"},"modified":"2025-02-26T13:21:13","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T13:21:13","slug":"increasing-the-pension-age-wont-solve-the-pensions-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/business\/2013\/12\/05\/increasing-the-pension-age-wont-solve-the-pensions-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Increasing the Retirement Age won\u2019t solve the Pensions Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jo Grady, Lecturer in Human Resource Management and Industrial Relations at the School, responds to George Osbourne’s Autumn Statement, particularly on its proposal to increase the retirement age to 70.<\/em><\/p>\n

Speaking on LBC 97.3 today (December 5th<\/sup>, 2013), in defence of the coalition government\u2019s decision to increase the retirement age to 70, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg argued “the point at which you retire is being shifted as people become more affluent and live longer\u201d.On what basis, we should all ask, was Clegg making such a claim?<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s excellent Guardian editorial<\/a>, for example, reports that median income in working households has\u201cfallen a massive 6.4% since 2008\u201d, while figures provided by the House of Commons Library<\/a> in August of this year reveal that the UK is 4th <\/sup>bottom in Europe with respect to real wages. Recent reports provided by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) have<\/a> also underlined the rising cost of living<\/a> and the subsequent fall in living standards since the Chancellor George Osbourne\u2019s first budget in 2010, while the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission solemnly suggests<\/a> that \u201ctoday’s middle-class children are on track to be the first in more than a century to be materially less well off in adulthood than their parents\u201d. All of this is set against the backdrop of increasing unemployment for those aged 16-24, which, according to the House of Commons Library<\/a>, was 21.0% in November 2013. The evidence for Clegg\u2019s claim seems to be somewhat lacking.<\/p>\n

It is only when we understand Clegg\u2019s statement as an ideological gesture, rather than as an empirically verifiable one, that it starts to make a little more sense. In so doing we should recognise that pension concerns have always been subject to the ideological conditions prevalent within a particular period. In this regard, today\u2019s Guardian editorial also reminds us that Lloyd George, who introduced the first state pension back in 1905, did so in the spirit of liberal benevolence. This was improved upon to varying degrees until 1942, when the progressive spirit of social reform was expressed within Lord Beveridge\u2019s proposal for a comprehensive state pension. The post-war Labour government went on to cherry-pick various aspects of the Beveridge Report, leaving us, if you\u2019ll pardon the pun, with something of a diluted Beveridge. The state provision was then subsequently bickered over until the post-war consensus fell apart during the late 1970s\/early 1980s, after which the neoliberal consensus regarding the status of the state pension came to prominence.<\/p>\n

So, although often presented as a new and pressing concern, the affordability of pensions, coupled with an increase in life expectancy, have long been hallmarks of pension debates. Such concerns can actually be traced back at least as far as the 1601 enactment of the Poor Law. Many of the arguments originally levelled against Beveridge have been simply echoed throughout today\u2019s House of Commons, as well as the wider news media.<\/p>\n

Case in point: Sky News<\/a> today reported a government source saying that the new retirement age \u201cis part of the government’s long-term plan to secure a responsible recovery\u201d.\u00a0 The Chancellor added that the change \u201cwill help make sure the country can offer people decent pensions in their old age in a way that with increasing life expectancy the country can also afford.\u201d This is ideology, plain and simple. Today\u2019s gesture isn\u2019t straightforwardly a question of affordability: it is a political decision, just like the granting of tax breaks to Vodafone or the spending of public money on Trident. Equally so, today\u2019s decision isn\u2019t made in pursuit of a responsible recovery since the truly responsible thing to pursue would be sustainable jobs within sustainable communities for the sake of a sustainable economy.<\/p>\n

Delaying retirement and prolonging working will not provide a long term solution to this ongoing crisis. Nor will telling people that saving for an income in retirement is their personal responsibility, something which the state cannot and will not help them with. Ideology, by its very nature, can be divisive. We shouldn\u2019t allow ourselves to be fooled about what today\u2019s announcement really means.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jo Grady, Lecturer in Human Resource Management and Industrial Relations at the School, responds to George Osbourne’s Autumn Statement, particularly on its proposal to increase the retirement age to 70. Speaking on LBC 97.3 today (December 5th, 2013), in defence of the coalition government\u2019s decision to increase the retirement age to 70, Deputy Prime Minister […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[47,89,100,94,91,87,27,88,104,90,45,96,95,102,99,76,98,93,85,103,97,105,92,101,79,108,107,106],"class_list":["post-63","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-austerity","tag-autumn-statement","tag-benevolvence","tag-beveridge","tag-coalition-government","tag-economics","tag-financial-crisis","tag-george-osbourne","tag-house-of-commons","tag-ideology","tag-industrial-relations","tag-inflation","tag-jo-grady","tag-labour","tag-lloyd-george","tag-neoliberalism","tag-nick-clegg","tag-pensions","tag-politics","tag-poor-law","tag-real-wages","tag-retirement","tag-retirement-age","tag-social-reform","tag-sustainability","tag-tax","tag-trident","tag-vodafone"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/129"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions\/70"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}