On the 23rd of February we looked at the very real issue of people going broke when they are advanced in years. This can be a problem due to bad investment performance for those who have pensions, having no pension and not having enough, or outliving your money – what refer to as having ‘too much month at the end of the money’.
We have suggestions, but as always, prudent planning is key.
On the 9th of February in the ‘Talking Money’ segment of RTE 1 Drivetime show Mary Wilson had us in to discuss some changes that were coming down the line in the UK for the over 55’s regarding their pensions. This will have an effect on thousands of Irish people and we considered that as well as whether or not the move was a good idea or not.
The age of retirement is going to rise, within the next five years it has to. There are several reasons, the most immediate being that the state doesn’t have the money to fund retirement at present, other factors are that people are living longer and the combined increase in health care costs to the elderly with the weight of funding pensions means one or the other has to give in eventually.
In October of 2005 Seamus Brennan gave a talk at the Merrion Hotel on the subject of the ‘Issues facing an ageing population’. The statistics are particularly relevant as they have not changed much since then.
(Excerpt) ‘The facts speak for themselves, in 2002 almost half a million people were aged 65 or over. The latest population projections suggest this may increase to 1.1 million people aged 65 and over by 2036. Right now we have almost 5 people working for every pensioner, when the demographic challenges are at their height this will decline to two workers for every pensioner. This fact has …
