The Seeds of Death
by Ian Chesterton
Today I'm going to be talking about
pensions, and life expectancy. It will get pretty morbid, and I
apologise in advance for that. But with the challenges to our
pensions, I think it is important that we all take a long hard look at
the realities. All the data that follows on life expectancy comes
from the Office of National Statistics, by the way.
If you were born back in the early '30s,
you could expect to live until you were around 59 - or 63 if you were
female (women live a bit longer than men - for the rest of this article
I'll be giving figures like that as "around 59/63").
Dreadful time - men were expected to work until just before they were
ready to quit working, so as not to be a "drain on the
economy".
By 1940, things had improved, and you
would make it to around 63/67. And by 1950, newborn babies could
expect to live until 66/71.
Look at those numbers carefully.
And consider that we have almost 50 members still working in this Branch
who were born in 1950 or earlier, who will be looking at less than a
dozen years of retirement, on average.
1960. And if you were born then you
could expect to see your 67th/73rd birthday. 1 or 2 more years on
someone born a whole decade earlier. By 1970, the expectation is
69/75. Still going up, but men are still looking at less than a
decade drawing their pension, with women getting 15 years - but we
should not forget that even in 1970 we are a long way from equal pay
(still are in 2011, come to that), so those extra few years will be at a
significantly smaller pension. VERY broadly speaking, the total
amount of pension paid out to a person will be the same whatever their
gender, but spread over a different length of time. |
Incidentally, around three-quarters of the
people in this Branch were born between 1950 and 1970, and so are
looking at somewhere between 6/11 and 9/15 years of retirement.
Sorry - WOULD HAVE been looking at around
a decade of retirement. Don't forget that the pension proposals
want to push retirement age up from 60 to 65, meaning that those 700-odd
people can now look forward to a wonderful 5 or 6 years of retirement.
Unaffordable? Unsustainable?
1980 - 71/77. And 1990 - 73/79.
Meaning our youngest members will still only be enjoying retirement for
about 6 years (for men - 12 for women) after their retirement at age
67…..assuming that the government doesn’t push the retirement age up
even further - and rest assured they will, if they win this time round.
Put very bleakly, even BEFORE these changes,
the average member of this branch could hope for maybe a decade of
retirement, after working perhaps for 40 years.
FOR THE VAST MAJORITY OF PEOPLE IN
THIS BRANCH, THESE PENSION PROPOSALS WILL HALVE THE NUMBER OF YEARS YOU
WILL HAVE IN RETIREMENT.
Unaffordable? Unsustainable?
No.
We all deserve those ten years on the
seafront. Not a lot to ask after a lifetime of service. Time
when we can kick back and enjoy life, with no alarm clocks, no
deadlines, no performance reviews, no worries. Just our family,
our friends, our hobbies…..our lives.
Ten years. It's not a lot to ask
for. But the Government wants to take half of it away.
Let's stand together next
month, and tell them NO.
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