What becomes of Previously Important Persons?

Catching up on a blog by Mark Freedman (of Encore Careers fame) in the Harvard Business Review, I was intrigued to read his comment: “A former high-ranking media executive I met recently described himself as a new member of the PIP Squad — Previously Important Persons.”

It underlined what we all know – that to retire is to lose one’s importance and to become invisible in the eyes of the world. Ask any older person you meet what they do and it’s almost certain that if they say they’re retired they will immediately qualify it by addiing “but I used to be…..”  In short, they are a PIP.

PIP status isn’t linked to grade and salary achieved. A person didn’t have to be a big cheese, chairman or professional in their career. Whatever their level, what they were was someone who was important in the eyes of the world by virtue of their place as a contributing, valued individual.

Retirement strips people of that value and recognition. Above and beyond financial reward, it is what drives many to want to keep on working.

Mark Freedman’s blog: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/05/outsourcing_the_old_folks.html

Pipedreams and pensions

There was considerable coverage last week concerning the government announcement that plans to raise the state pension age to 66 in 2020 will now be delayed by six months. This will affect some of the thousands of women facing an extra two-year wait for their pension under the original plans.

Simon Read (the Independent journalist responsible) wrote:

 “It still leaves women born between 6 March and 5 April 1954 facing having to work for an extra 18 months [sic] than they had expected. And it’s estimated that they’ll still end up with £7,500 less than if they had been able to claim the state pension when they had been told they would be eligible. Sure, they have a few years to make some adjustments to their finances; to cope with the change in dates and anticipated income, but adequate pension planning needs to be done over a lifetime of work, not mucked about with when you’re approaching retirement.”

Whilst this situation is irksome and disappointing for those affected, it is not a massive injustice compared to the situation of those who a) are older and cannot find work or  b) have suffered from a poorly performing personal pension which may well have left them far more than £7,500 out of pocket.

Read’s comment on the work situation is strange. He writes:

“many of these woman [sic] may not simply be able to work for another 18 months to make up for the lost state pension. Many, for instance, have been busy raising families rather than concentrating on their career and so would find it nigh-on impossible to find work now, with unemployment soaring.”

The last sentence is a complete non-sequitur in as much as if you are a woman who has not been working at all until later life your state pension will be negligible or non-existent anyway. For women such as this, to echo Simon’s words, “adequate pension planning needs to be done over a lifetime of work” not, figuratively speaking, in the last few days.

Even more strange however was that BBC TV, announcing the development, used footage of an older woman complaining that raising the pension age had ruined the plans she and her husband had had since they first married in their twenties. That is unfortunate but for most of us the majority of rosy plans we had in our twenties have never materialised.

In light of this and more it’s surely time for everyone to get real concerning the fact that a state pension is neither a right, a lottery grant or a holiday fund. “Adequate pension planning” can no longer be a case of anticipating that the state pension will or should fund our pipedreams as and when we want.

Link to article

http://www.linkedin.com/share?viewLink=&sid=s644829162&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eindependent%2Eco%2Euk%2Fmoney%2Fspend-save%2Fsimon-read-women-are-still-set-to-be-unfairly-hit-by-raising-the-retirement-age-2370898%2Ehtml&urlhash=imQZ&pk=member-home&pp=3&poster=56672611&uid=5531661737402564608&trk=NUS_UNIU_SHARE-title

The right to retire?

There’s been much food for thought over the past few days in the reinvigorated debate about the increase in the state pension age. Interest has centred largely on those several hundred thousand women in their late fifties who will now have to wait a couple of years more before they receive their state pension. This is a double whammy for them in as much as raising the age for all comes on top of the increase in women’s state pension age (to align it with men’s) which is now being phased in following a notice period of several years.

Of course, it is unfortunate and unfair for those particular women, but the change has to be made. It is arguably equally unfair to keep the burden of paying for older people’s pensions with the shrinking pool of working age people (many of whom now face long-term financial pressures). Certainly the fact that women have been able to retire well before men has been totally unjust for many years and completely at odds with women’s longer lifespans and drive for equality.

At the heart of the issue however seems to be the question of do we, as citizens, have a right to retire? Not just a need, or a desire, or a social habit, but a right? Personally it had never occurred to me that we might, but listening to the input of others not just over the past few days but for many years now, it appears that many do.

I find it an attitude that is difficult to accommodate. Whilst I acknowledge that one has rights in relation to personal or workplace pensions that one pays into, in terms of an expected and reasonable return at a certain date, I don’t believe that the state pension system is the same thing.

Surely, like income support for the unemployed, it was only ever intended to be a default – a way of assisting those who were too weak or unfortunate to be able to continue to work? Although the idea seems a glorious nirvana, it wasn’t ever intended to be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow guaranteed for all who had simply worked for a number of years and paid their taxes…was it?

So – hard luck that pensions are now being pushed off a bit, but our focus as a society surely has got to be firmly on creating and sustaining work for older people, not paying pensions. That’s a field where there’s plenty to complain about that might actually have a productive outcome.

Time, I feel, for a good prime time TV documentary on the origin of the state pension and the reality of what people can and should expect. We’ve got to start accepting that a state pension is a priviledge not a right.

Wise and foolish virgins … and pensioners

A challenging article in today’s Independent questions whether “pensioners” (loathe that term, but for once it is being correctly used) should be spared when it comes to spending cuts.  Worth reading the piece and the comments which follow to see which side of the argument you favour.

It’s a difficult one. On the one hand it has always seemed a complete nonsense that comparatively young and wealthy individuals (who may still be working) are handed over the winter fuel allowance and a free bus pass, when clearly they are able to pay for these things themselves. On the other hand, means testing is demeaning and even worse, those wise virgins who have spent and saved wisely throughout their lives in order to adequately fund their latter years end up being penalised in comparison to their foolish peers who may have chosen to spend too much on beer and fags.

The fairest way has got to be to cut out the benefits and focus on increasing the amount of the state pension to a reasonable level – thereby enabling people to choose what they spend it on. The justification ought to be that pensions are linked to NI payments throughout working life, although it’s impossible not to still see the injustice in paying the same to those who have never worked.

The only conclusion is that “life just isn’t fair”. And that improved financial education for all from an early age has got to be a state priority.

That aside, a review of the current system would, at least, help avoid the growing but largely misplaced, sense of intergenerational injustice.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/david-prosser-the-charmed-lives-of-britains-pensioners-inan-age-of-austerity-2222766.html

How to alienate your customers – young or old

One of Age UK’s ongoing activities is to pursue the cause of the older consumer through its Age OK product accreditation mark (see www.engagenetwork.co.uk ). Quoting from the site:

“The Age OK accreditation mark will be awarded to specific products and services that an expert panel has judged to be sufficiently ‘age-friendly’. In order to win the accreditation, the product or service will go through a rigorous selection process that seeks to ensure that it has been designed inclusively, factoring in the needs that might pertain to an older person.”

I think that this is an excellent idea and I hope that many more organisations put themselves forward for this accreditation.

In the meantime though, in a much less formal and less rigorous fashion, I think it would be very worthwhile if the world were alerted to some aspects of product or service provision that seemed to be particularly age friendly or, indeed, age unfriendly.

To start with, mainly because it is the season of goodwill to everyone and this is something I have written to the company about in the past, we will focus on an age unfriendly feature. To be honest, this is not something that is restricted to older consumers but now being an older consumer myself I feel particularly victimised, especially as I did not suffer from this in my earlier years.

So the first recipient of my Negative Age Friendly Features (NAFF) award is Sainsbury.

I have been shopping at Sainsbury since I was about seven years old when I was sent by my mum to queue up at different counters to purchase things like ham, butter and cheese all separately. Believe me, loyalty is not an issue.

And, presumably Sainsbury wished to reward my loyalty a few weeks ago by sending me vouchers to reduce my groceries bill. To receive my reward of £7 off my bill each week I had to spend a minimum of £70 each week. This is great for families and used to be for me some years back but, with the best will in the world, as a person living on their own you really have to go some to spend that kind of money each and every week. I now have enough pickled onions and chutney not just for this Christmas but for next Christmas as well.  Please think a bit harder Mr. Sainsbury about your customers and what messages you are sending them.

Pensions – it’s all relative

There is much that could be said about yesterday’s decision to increase the state pension age for men. But most of it has been said elsewhere.  

What it did throw into sharp relief was the notion of relativity. The London Evening Standard (and no doubt other places) reported that if the state pension age had gradually been increased in line with increasing life expectancy since the state pension age was first introduced, the age for claiming it would now be 75.  

And yet, in France, there is major complaint about the fact it is being increased to age 62.  

It underlines the fact that basic human behaviour and attitudes change very little whatever the situation. If you want to change something do it subtly and slowly over a long period of time. Assuming the underlying proposition is reasonable, people then find little to complain about.

Ban the bus pass

National news this morning:  as a result of “little publicised changes made by Alistair Darling in last autumn’s pre-budget report” (Daily Mail), pensioners will now have to wait longer for their free bus pass. 

Apparently eligibility is now being brought into line with the new later retirement age for women which is now being incrementally introduced. Both men and women will now qualify for the bus pass at the age at which women qualify for a state pension.

It would appear that yes, the government have been somewhat “sneaky” about the change, but “c’est la vie”. What is worse is that they have apparently denied reports that bus passes are to be scrapped or means tested.

For goodness sakes.  Apparently this simple delay to eligibility for the bus pass will save over a billion pounds in the next five years. How much more money to devote to pensions, jobs and other useful areas of expenditure could be saved if this outmoded and demeaning handout was ditched?

So the message to the government is  – Do it – immediately. Win some votes: improve pensions overall and let people pay their own bus fares. 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1265287/Pensioners-face-year-wait-bus-pass-sneaky-rule-change.html

Beware the bus pass backlash

It’s obviously the media silly season if current bus pass headlines are anything to go by. Short of anything else to do in these untroubled times it appears that the powers that be have focused their attention on the thorny issue of  “how have we managed to shoot ourselves in the foot by showing nothing but generosity and inclusivity to pensioners by giving them all free a bus pass only to find that the ungrateful old ***s are now actually using them?”  Yesterday’s Daily Mail article put the issue rather more succinctly: “Town hall chiefs say millions of middle-class pensioners are taking advantage of the free bus passes, and only the poor deserve the privilege”. Hmm… taking advantage while being undeserving – what are middle class pensioners thinking of?

What Town Hall chiefs obviously weren’t thinking of when they introduced the scheme is what seems blindingly obvious. Pensioners are using their bus passes because they realise 1) that they have paid for the privilege and are – in most cases – continuing to fund the scheme through taxation 2) most pensioners get very little else of real value from the state, and 3) there is an underlying concern for the environment amongst a large proportion of the older generation.

A glance at the article today on the Daily Mail’s website shows that already it has elicited well over 400 comments – a veritable media frenzy – with Joan Bakewell warning of a “Grey bus pass backlash”.  What a shame all this furore isn’t about something a bit more fundamental like ageism, lack of jobs for the over 50s, or the pitifully low level of the state pension.  Never mind, perhaps like buses there’ll be nothing for ages then suddenly there’ll be a big backlash against all three all at once. Or not.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1204607/The-bus-pass-means-test-Middle-class-millions-lose-right-free-travel.html