Pensions news with a British Flavo[u]r

25Jun/100

Pensions news with a British Flavo[u]r

After princesses, back to the pensions grind.

UK transsexual gets pension backdated to age 60, women's retirement age, as opposed to age 65, men's retirement age.. More details at link.
The UK doesn't have to worry about these shenanigans for much longer. No, not b/c they'll change the laws about same sex marriage or laws regarding transsexuals. It's because men and women will have the same official retirement age.

And yes, if anything, women should have higher retirement ages than men due to women's greater longevity, which is on the order of 3-7 years in most developed nations. [the differences here can come from what the “starting age” from which you're measuring survival. Life expectancy from birth really isn't appropriate.]
Two great disasters go great together: NY pensions v. BP: “On Wednesday, New York state Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli announced he had hired a law firm to start the process of seeking damages from BP caused by a 50% drop in stock value since the April 20 explosion at a deep-water drilling site.”
Good luck with that. Perhaps y'all will get to belly up to the bar before Obama's folks suck all the BP $$ away with a straw and plug that hole of payouts.
UK PM calls political bluff, forgos pension to be able to tackle spending and pension cuts. In your court, Labo[u]r.
Acceleration of changing retirement age in UK, with a little tardiness on getting women up to the same age. In addition to raising the retirement age, they are axing mandatory retirement ages as well [mandatory retirement ages seem good for certain positions, but in general are a stupid result of people not being allowed to say that yes, some people are no good for their positions any more. One of the best math profs at NCSU was in his 80s [I think] when I was there, and a few others had gone senile in their 50s. Can't predict these things.]
A little Greece for extra seasoning: middle-aged women collecting survivor's pensions... from their mothers. If they don't wed. And the arduous jobs that allow for super-early retirement: car washers, hairdressers, steam bath attendants. Kicker: there are 1.7 workers per pensioner.
As for the moocher collecting her mother's pension, she claims no one will hire an over-60-year-old woman. In Greece, sure, because none of you are doing work in the first place. But my 70-year-old ma-in-law gets regular work in a medical lab. Seems if you have actual skills and actually will do work, people might hire you.

Meep

Meep is a member of the Irish Catholic mafia, having a suspiciously high number of green-eyed, red-haired friends. While she doesn’t have red hair herself [except when she goes into the sun (rare for any vampire)], she does have green eyes. She’s a raving Papist and is a life actuary on the side [i.e., she counts dead people]. An amateur pain-in-the-ass [willing to go pro!], she likes covering retirement, mortality, math, and education issues.