David's Daily Diversions

Work til You Drop

The Government has released proposals today to fight age discrimination in the workplace. It will theoretically make it more difficult advertise jobs as only for young people. It will also try to prevent employers from refusing to promote or give training opportunities to older employees, or giving them disadvanatageous pensions and other benefits.

Of course you have to give a little to get a little, so the trade off is that companies will be able to refuse full entitlement to company pensions until age 70. State pensions would still be available from 65 for now.

This is just one step away from the inevitable. The state pension (the equivalent of Social Security benefits in the US) will have to eventually be raised to age 70 as well. Otherwise the money is simply going to dry up. Older people are living longer and younger people are not having babies. The Government's proposal points out that within seven years, 40% of British workers will be over 45 and only 17% under 24. Soon there simply won't be a workforce to pay for benefits. The way things are going, I may have to work until I'm 80.