Retire at 67 plan as money runs out
Friday 10th July 2009, 2:30PM BST.
GUERNSEY’S pension age will rise to 67 under proposals announced today.
It is part of a package of measures Social Security has unveiled to ensure the sustainability of the funds it manages.
The proposals will be debated at the end of the month but face a strong challenge from Treasury to delay a decision.
Other measures target higher earners and employers as the department tries to ensure there is enough money in the pot to fund future pensions and benefits as the effects of an ageing population begin to bite.
‘We’re recommending a solution involving relatively small changes in several areas rather than one or two big moves,’ said Social Security minister Mark Dorey (pictured).
‘It’s important to remember that we are proposing these small changes now in order to avoid far greater changes in the future and also because we’re predicting an operating deficit this year.
‘This is government doing what it has often been criticised for not doing – proper, long-term planning.’
The change to the pension age would be gradual under the plan.
It would remain at 65 until 2019 and then increase by two months a year from 2020, to reach 67 by 2031.
Employers’ contribution rates would increase by 0.5 per cent, to seven per cent of employees’ earnings, from January next year.
Higher earners will also have to pay more next year.
Island Life
All about Guernsey
Ambassador of the Year 2011
History & Heritage
Visitor Information
Guernsey's government
Campaigns
Voice For Victims
Voice for Victims is a campaign aimed at promoting the rights of those affected by child sexual abuse.
This is Guernsey
Guernsey Press
Useful Links
While they’re at it they should take a look at the Welfare system as a whole. The current system rewards cartain people for not working & encourages other ill-equipped people to bear children with little thought for the consequences, creating a self-perpetuating vicious circle.
Pensions should reflect more accurately a person’s contribution to the pot during the course of their 50 year working life. Someone who has spent the majority of it on the dole queue should receive a subsistence level of income. This philosophy should be extended to the provision of care home places for the elderly.
Report abuse
Why should I work longer just because the buffoons that run our island have screwed us over too much….
They have wasted our coffers on rubbish & now they plan to bleed us dry…
This is officially the worst state the islands government has ever been in & todays States members should be ashamed of themselves!!
You wanna get on in life??…. leave this rock!!
& before the Sarnia brigade get on my back – I am Guernsey born & bred & I am planning to take my family to the other side of the world – as far away from this corrupt island as I can!!!
Report abuse
W H Bonney
Spot on
Tell me what its like when you get there, i might join you :)
Report abuse
why should the elderly work harder to get these so called states members out of trouble .to get more money in make all these kids stop milking everyone .by having kids and living off the states .get the states to open a cresh and make them all work for a living .and not scrounge off everyone else
Report abuse
my dad retired at 65 died the year after,this is ill thought out, this dept knows that people won t live much after 67, might be ok for some guy sitting in a office what about heavy manual work some poor old guy liffting blocks all day, or with a wheel barrow full of concrete,I work in town on a very low wage, and i see the same people walking around that never work, there are young females who just get pregnent and don t pay anything into the system, those are the ones the states should be targeting.
Report abuse
Avoid Switzerland you guys, the government here have had similar ideas recently…….
Report abuse
to wh bonney (billy the kid) good luck ,i too am born and bred so too were parents and grand parents it breaks my heart to see that the island has degenerated into the current state it’s in ,a lot of claptrap about the baby boom generation being a bigger population than ever before and people living longer ,load of c***p they gambled with the fund and lost it, the rest they frittered away , leave the aircraft door open i’m right behind you (as soon as i save up the fare to gatwick)
Report abuse
We’d like to think from America life is soft and cushy on the Islands, but if you’re the guy who’s 65 and worked since 18 then your sell by date is fast approaching.
This scheme will go through if the younger consituents don’t put up a stink now before it’s too late. Politicos know youngsters don’t get too excited about government proposals…
Herbert’s pretty brilliant with the proposal to consider dole/earner contribution considerations. But no government is going to get into that hot potato.
Report abuse
Harsh – but fair. And very accurate.
Care home places shouldn’t be an issue for some of the impending eldery though as they will have a choice of 14, and counting, kids with their own States houses to go and live with.
Report abuse
Worst Government this Island has ever had. We thought we had it bad before. No doubt they will blame it all on previous States. Why do Guernsey people put up with it. Get together and just say NO, enough is enough. You are taxing us to the hilt, we are paying more for food, higher housing costs and now you want us to work until we are 67.
Perhaps we could save money and go back to the days when States memebrs did not get paid, they were not great but they were better than the fools we have today. You have Trosky and his team travelling the globe at our expence, using most of the time a rival airline to the Government run one at s greater expence?
Don’t someone say that that is part of their expences allowance because where does that come from? We also pay that.
Had enough then lets say so NO MORE, ENOUGH is ENOUGH.
Rant over, nothing will change. Where’s this place you going to WH.
Report abuse
Once again they spend, they tax…..where’s their commitment to “saving” enough money to fund retirement…like I have to! The States gets bigger, the tax (direct and indirect) keeps growing but the benefits are reducing….so where’s it all going? It’s the ultimate insult asking workers to pay more, over a longer period, just because the States cannot manage with it’s combination of hobby politicians and a legion of civil servants….Maybe they should end their own final salary schemes and divert some of that cash back to their employers…the tax payers!
Report abuse
Bad choice W H Bonney
because here on the other side of the planet the laws have already been passed to raise the retirement age to 67 and if you don’t have a very substantial superannuation by then you will certainly be living on an extremely meagre pension indeed.
Report abuse
I do not think this has been thought through properly and the how it will impact individuals.
67 is too long to work,not only will it make people stay at work longer but it will stop others going into higher positions.I have friends that have not reached 65 only January a friend of mines husband died he was due to retire with a pension June but the states will be hanging on to that one.
Russia`s age for retirement is 55,yet the states want us all to work longer !!!Yes you will save money at the expense of others and some will not even be alive to see their pensions “Shame on you”.
You need to look after local people clearly you realy Care!!!!!!
Our children stay home longer because they cannot afford houses,some of us home elderly parents too without help from the states oh sorry that is not true ,when my mother gave up a states house to live with us Social sent around someone to check my home out(cheek of it).So go on destroy our dreams ,take our pensions away to save money OUR MONEY.
Report abuse
While I disagree with raising the pension age, bloggers need to realise that this is happening all over the developed world, including mainland UK where it has already been decided that it is increasing to 68(!). The ‘pension timebomb’ is not unique to Guernsey and the States, for once, cannot be blamed; although they are responsible for how they ultimately deal with it.
From the UK Department for Work and Pensions website:-
“The State Pension age for both men and women is set to increase from 65 to 68 between 2024 and 2046, with each change phased in over two consecutive years in each decade.
The first increase, from 65 to 66, will be phased in between April 2024 and April 2026; the second, from 66 to 67, will be phased in between April 2034 and April 2036; and the third, from 67 to 68, between April 2044 and April 2046.”
Basically, in the UK if you were born in the 1950′s or before you will get your State Pension at 65, born in the 1960′s at 66, born in the 1970′s at 67, born in the 1980′s or after 68.
To make it affordable it seems likely that this will have to change yet again for those born in the 1990′s to 69 and finally for those born in the 21st Century to 70.
This, of course, is not the age you can or have to retire, just the age you will be able to draw your State Pension. With some sort of private pension plan you may, if you’re lucky, still be able to retire earlier.
Report abuse
Hurrah the UK inspired welfare state that taxpayers are subsidising needs 2 more years out of us. Great!
Its staring them in the face but they havent got the nerve to tackle it.
Dole- Scrap it more or less completely, no half measures, on Guernsey there is NO REASON even in todays climate for someone to be out of work.
Dole should only be for emergency scenarios only, such as redunandancies, medical issues etc etc. Why should we pay for some lazy git to sit around smoking pot on our money just because he/she cant be bothered working.
Children as career options- Scrap it completely, I know plenty of mothers who work, and have to juggle their childcare arrangements around their job, they also *shock horror* have mortgages!! So why should we be subsidising these lazy people who couldnt be bothered at school so they just fire a couple of kids out with their life now sorted thanks to our tax payments.
I think this would be more popular than people realise, because its a vicious circle, these kids brought up in a welfare environment will more than likely end up doing exactly the same.
Its snowballing in the UK to the point of unsustainability. It will more than likely happen over here as well, 2 years is the tip of the iceberg.
Report abuse
What a poor state of affairs.. This will be another bhash at the low earners.. The weathy will still be retiring young..
But if were have to do it…
It should be from NOW???.
So all the civil servants how made this mess suffer too..not just punshing our kids
Report abuse
One of the biggest injustices of our welfare system is that the more you earn over the current cap, the less you pay in to the pot as a percentage of your income.
What is wrong with a flat contribution rate for all, so that all pay according to their means?
I guess the States would not have the courage to change the system, although Matt Fallaize has alluded to the same suggestion, but also does not think it would find support in the States. It would certainly boost the coffers.
Can’t risk scaring the wealthy away though, can we?
Report abuse
Fact Sheet
Your comments and reference to the UK position are absolutely spot on. There seems to be a lack of awareness that the raising of the pension age is happening everywhere else and not just here.
The average life expectancy for males and females in this region of the world has risen by far more than 2 years in the past three decades It stands to reason therefore that a pension taken at aged 65 now has to last far longer on average than was envisaged when a new pensioner today was anticipating at age 35. Raising the pension age merely realigns the average post-retirement lifespan of pensioners with the expected life of the average actuarially- calculated pension fund.
Report abuse
The Man
You sure are.
Spot on. Except that, to be fair, they don’t spend ALL of our money on smoking pot – a chunk of it goes on tattoing and body piercing too. Oh and fags and booze of course. And then we can also pick up the legal aid bills too when the booze gets overpowering [but it's never their fault is it, dear apologist Advocates on legal aid fees?? "My client has had a difficult week" - we all do now and again, bonehead, but we don't ask society to pay for the consequences and for the cost of having some overpaid fop making excuses on our behalf].
You’re right – it is snowballing. And this is exactly where Dorey and his fellow apologists will keep channelling the money which they take / extort from us true workers in ever increasing proportions [and yes, I'm a single parent with a mortgage and a full-time job].
How about subsidising the genuine needs of parents who actually work [e.g. school dentists, childcare etc] rather than giving all these things free to those who can’t be @rsed? And it’s not just those of us with children who are getting shafted at the expense of the spongers – there are many more worthwhile things to divert the money into for the childless too.
And of course when I say “us true workers” I mean the middle range earners who have to work bl**dy hard and budget very carefully to make ends meet, not the overpaid undertaxed lot who our States have deemed to be a protected species, and certainly not the wasters you so accurately refer to.
They mismanage our money, give it to the open beaked chicks who don’t even try to fly, and then they retire at 60 on their final salary pensions. How dare we criticise?
Report abuse
People are right to moan about the mismanagement of the State’s penion provision, but this doesn’t change the fact that – worldwide – people are living significantly longer. I don’t think there is a government in the world that does not face similar problems – longer life expectancy means a massive extra pension liability for the state.
There is an alternative. There are relatively low cost private pensions that people can pay money into which will offset the potential hardship they would face if they rely on the State’s pension alone. The local firm Carey Group do one called the Osprey Plan which is pretty good I beleive (I think other local firms do them too).
OK, its not ideal, particularly if you aren’t earning a big wage, but its better than nothing. The fact is that, if you do not put aside a bit for your future retirement (and start as early as possible) you are going to have to live on a pittance in your old age.
Depending entirely on the state just isn’t a reliable option any more.
Report abuse
I also will be joining WH Bonney, there doesnt seem to be a bright future in this island and our money goes to people who simply dont want to work and scrounge off the states so they can go to the pub everyday
Report abuse