The Problems Of The "pension Generation"

yrosen

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"Covid-19 has shown me life is short, so.. I want an early retirement". Well thats nice, but, who's paying?
Well I'll tell you who's going to pay the price of the pension generation: gen X and Y. If youre "unlucky" enough to be born between 1970 and 1990 and you havent accumulated or in line to inherit a fortune, you're probably working more hours, earning less and will have far less than your 55-65 year old boss.
He's got a nice fat pension from a steady job he's probably held for ages. While you've had at least 3 career changes and spent far more years studying or learning skills.

The pension generation is retiring earlier, and leaving dust and crums, and crumbling pension schemes across the globe to future generations. If youre not in the lucky few to work in tech or finance bubbles, you'll be coming out of the workforce in 20-25 years time with half the pension this current pension generation has accumulated. In many cases, thats if we're lucky. Because workplaces around the globe are not only cutting salaries and making fulltime jobs into part-time and temporary, as a result of the burden of pensions, they are also cutting and slicing their workforce altogether. As one company exec told me "I have to employ 50 ghost-workers who sit at home and get the highest salaries and I can't fire any of them, till they kick the bucket".

Covid-19 has caused a ripple effect in pensions and job security, and again, its the younger gen-x with less job security and lower paying jobs, many in never-ending temporary positions, who have paid the highest price, millions struggling without having had the opportunity or job security to save for a rainy or pandemic day. We look with envy as our parents decide to retire early, and begin again the chatter on high priced vacations around the globe, or moving to sunny retirement condo villages, as we struggle to pay rent and taxes and many in their 30s and 40s are left relying on their financial assistance. 'The bank of mom and dad' is not because we're lazy or splurging. Its because they have accumulated far more of their fair share of the pie through salaries and pensions that have become unsustainable in the work pyramid as the percentages of over 65's skyrocket globally.
Perhaps its time to stop accepting this as a fact of life, and create real change in this upside-down workforce model, where we are left to finance the upper middle class pension economy by working more and more, and earning less and less.
 
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bar4doug

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"Covid-19 has shown me life is short, so.. I want an early retirement". Well thats nice, but, who's paying?
Well I'll tell you who's going to pay the price of the pension generation: gen X and Y. If youre "unlucky" enough to be born between 1970 and 1990 and you havent accumulated or in line to inherit a fortune, you're probably working more hours, earning less and will have far less than your 55-65 year old boss.
He's got a nice fat pension from a steady job he's probably held for ages. While you've had at least 3 career changes and spent far more years studying or learning skills.

The pension generation is retiring earlier, and leaving dust and crums, and crumbling pension schemes across the globe to future generations. If youre not in the lucky few to work in tech or finance bubbles, you'll be coming out of the workforce in 20-25 years time with half the pension this current pension generation has accumulated. In many cases, thats if we're lucky. Because workplaces around the globe are not only cutting salaries and making fulltime jobs into part-time and temporary, as a result of the burden of pensions, they are also cutting and slicing their workforce altogether. As one company exec told me "I have to employ 50 ghost-workers who sit at home and get the highest salaries and I can't fire any of them, till they kick the bucket".

Covid-19 has caused a ripple effect in pensions and job security, and again, its the younger gen-x with less job security and lower paying jobs, many in never-ending temporary positions, who have paid the highest price, millions struggling without having had the opportunity or job security to save for a rainy or pandemic day. We look with envy as our parents decide to retire early, and begin again the chatter on high priced vacations around the globe, or moving to sunny retirement condo villages, as we struggle to pay rent and taxes and many in their 30s and 40s are left relying on their financial assistance. 'The bank of mom and dad' is not because we're lazy or splurging. Its because they have accumulated far more of their fair share of the pie through salaries and pensions that have become unsustainable in the work pyramid as the percentages of over 65's skyrocket globally.
Perhaps its time to stop accepting this as a fact of life, and create real change in this upside-down workforce model, where we are left to finance the upper middle class pension economy by working more and more, and earning less and less.

There are several forces at work here. In no particular order:

1. People are living longer.
2. Pensions have been underfunded. (I have friends who are actuaries and have stated that this has been going on for decades; it's political suicide to "end" public-sector pensions just as bad as it is to raise taxes adequately to fund them)
3. People are having fewer children, and those that do have them, are having them later in life. The "pyramid" scheme built on the worker-to-pensioner ratio is not balanced as it needs to be to pay off the aging population.
4. The internet / remote work has rendered some business models obsolete - not only for the businesses themselves, but for those whose livelihood depended on "office traffic", eliminating jobs.

The first three have been known for some time.
Politicians continuously kick the can down the road on the first two.
The third has come to light in the last 40 years.
The latter has come to light during the recent pandemic.

The business models of the post-WW2 era no longer work.
 
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