London Business School's Professor Andrew Scott writes in The Times that “Raising the state pension age doesn’t help us to stay productive for longer” in response to a new International Longevity Centre report which suggests that the UK’s state pension age must increase.
“The government has a problem. Falling birth rates and longer lives are producing fewer taxpayers and more pensioners. Raising the state pension age might seem like an obvious solution to rescue the public finances. But while it may solve the government’s funding problem, it would cause a big fall in the standard of living for the many who can’t work into their seventies. This is exactly the problem that the state pension was introduced to solve.
“We need to think of alternative solutions.
“The real problem is not so much how to make state pensions solvent but rather, how do we remain healthy and productive over our now longer lives?”
Professor Scott was also interviewed on the same subject in the Guardian and by journalist Evan Davis on the BBC Radio 4 PM programme.
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