October 2021
14Oct

Ireland. Pensions adequacy, planning for better life expectancy

By 2070, males born in Ireland will be expected to live 22 years longer than they would have in 1951, while females would be expected to live 23 years longer. Earlier this month, the Department of Finance released a report which suggested that the best way to deal with the pensions timebomb was to link the state pension age to life expectancy. The report was not greeted with enthusiasm. Political pressure after the last election forced a deferral of the planned...

October 14, 2021
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08Oct

The South African Retirement Reality Report 2020

By 10X Investment Even before Covid-19 and the associated lockdown, many South Africans, including many thousands of pensioners, were in crisis. The global pandemic has magnified many vulnerabilities in our society. It is in this context that 10X Investments launches the third annual report on retirement readiness in South Africa. The inaugural Retirement Reality Report, published in 2018, set out to interrogate the developing retirement crisis and its underlying causes based on the results of our Retirement Reality survey. The report...

October 8, 2021
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September 2021
23Sep

UK. DWP underpaid state pensions to the tune of £1bn

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) underpaid 134,000 pensioners in state pension to the tune of £1bn, according to new figures from the National Audit Office (NAO) “Repeated human errors over many years” was cited as the reason for the underpayment. Read also UK. Guy Opperman reappointed as pensions minister The NAO said some level of error in the processing of state pension claims was almost inevitable given “the complex rules and high degree of manual review necessary” when assessing them. Read...

September 23, 2021
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17Sep

The Ageing & Development Report: a summary Poverty, Independence & the World’s Older People

By Help Age International What is The Ageing & Development Report? The Ageing & Development Report is the first extensive survey of the roles and needs of older people in developing countries. The report examines the major social and economic implications of the rapid growth in numbers of older people in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Russia, Eastern and Central Europe. It covers the impact on economies, health systems, housing, working patterns and family relationships. The report draws on HelpAge...

September 17, 2021
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14Sep

German chancellor candidates clash over future of pension system

Chancellor candidates have argued over the future of the German pension system, offering opposite views to the public in the second televised debate which took place yesterday, as the general election on 26 September approaches. Olaf Scholz, chancellor candidate for the Social Democratic Party (SPD), now leading in the polls, said his party would “guarantee that the retirement age will not increase and that the level of pension remains stable,” also with an eye to the younger generation. Read also Germany....

September 14, 2021
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14Sep

US. Retiring Boomers Could Drive An Inflation Shift

Inflation tends to top the list of economic risks that investors obsess most about. After all, runaway inflation has devastated some economies over the centuries. Corralling inflation and keeping expectations well-anchored have been key mandates for most central banks for decades. However, inflation expectations are not uniform across age groups. Surveys from the New York Federal Reserve highlight the disparity. The over 60 crowd expects inflation to hit a staggering 5% three years from now, while those under 40 think...

September 14, 2021
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13Sep

Germany. Pensioners can expect significantly higher pensions

Pensioners in Germany can expect a significant increase in their pay next year, according to the pension insurance fund. "I assume that the missed increase will be made up for to a certain extent next year and that pensioners will get a decent plus in 2022," Gundula Roßbach, President of the German Pension Insurance Association, told the newspapers of the Funke Media Group."How much more it will be, we won't know until next spring, because we have to look...

September 13, 2021
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August 2021
31Aug

Does the U.S. have a retirement crisis?

By Alicia H. Munnell At the end of a recent conference, the perennial question arose — once again — as to whether the United States faces a retirement crisis. Read also U.S. corporate pension funding rises in August – 2 reports I’ve never been wedded to the word “crisis,” but the Center’s National Retirement Risk Index (NRRI) suggests that about half of today’s working-age households are at risk of not being able to maintain their standard of living in retirement. While the...

August 31, 2021
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18Aug

UK. Pressure increases on Rishi Sunak to suspend triple lock on pensions

Rishi Sunak has come under further pressure to suspend the state pension triple lock after wage figures showed that the chancellor is on course to pay pensioners a rise of more than 8% next year. Sunak is understood to be considering telling Britain’s 12 million state pension claimants that the pandemic has artificially inflated the official wages figures and a new formula is needed to calculate the rise in the basic state pension for next year. Read also UK. I Don’t...

August 18, 2021
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16Aug

3 Ugly Truths About Retirement in Canada

Saving for retirement has never been easy. In the days when private and public sector employers offered generous defined benefit (DB) pensions, that didn’t matter as much. But today, with private sector DB pensions all but extinct, you really have to save if you want to retire comfortably. If you’re a government worker with a very generous pension plan, then perhaps that doesn’t apply to you. But if you’re like most Canadians, you’re really going to need some savings to...

August 16, 2021
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