“When I am an old woman I shall wear purple with a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me. And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves and satin sandals, and say we've got no money for butter.”
Jenny Joseph, poet
If you’re currently aged between 43 and 59, start watching the news carefully: the chances are that the Government has you firmly in its sights. There’s a review of pension age taking place at present which will conclude in time for the Budget in six weeks’ time, and there's every likelihood that it will involve raising the age at which your state pension can be drawn to 68 from 2035 (thus bringing it forward by ten years.
Also, as if that's not enough, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has drawn particular attention to Generation X in his speech to business leaders last Friday — he wants you back in the workplace, if you still have your feet up after the pandemic.
Meanwhile in 2028, the age at which you will be able to access your private pension will rise from 55 to 57, as if to underline the determined pressure to keep Generation X working.
The impending conclusions of the state pension age review could provide a significant windfall for HM Treasury: it's estimated to be worth c. £10 billion a year to the Exchequer. This is because the whole state pension programme is like a gigantic Ponzi scheme — there is no public savings reserve built up, unlike private pension schemes which have to be properly funded by law. Working-age younger people making their national insurance contributions are effectively paying directly for the pensions for those in retirement, and it’s worth bearing in mind that the multiple of working-age people compared to retired people in the United Kingdom has fallen from nine in 1926 to approximately three today.
This arrangement is, of course, crackers, and it shows yet again the fallacy of democratic socialist welfare, as demonstrated in our commentary ‘Health and the Economy’ on 17 October 2022. It not only results in ever-escalating levels of public debt, but it also works diametrically opposite to the aims of inter-generational rebalancing: burdening the young with the costs of looking after the old, who on balance own twice their wealth.
Jeremy Hunt was focused on debt reduction in his speech to business leaders last Friday. His ‘4Es’ address on enterprise, education, employment, everywhere was quite a strategic and optimistic view to start the run-up for his forthcoming Budget.
Under ‘employment’, he drew particular attention to the fact that not enough Generation X people are working, and that's why there’s every chance that the state pension age will be increased earlier than expected.
For ‘enterprise’, he focused strongly on opportunities for technology, drawing attention to Britain’s prospects for becoming a ‘Silicon Valley’ of the future. This will be of more interest to the Millennials and Generation Z than Generation X, of course, and is less likely to require workforce capacity expansion — something that Brexit has made quite challenging.
His ‘education’ comments draw on Rishi Sunak’s focus on ‘Maths to 18’, but he could have done rather more to address training for old age in order to help Generation X prepare for their senior years. This recommendation also featured in our ‘Health and the Economy’ commentary.
Meanwhile, his ‘everywhere’ references were principally directed at the Government’s progress with levelling-up across the country, and the introduction of a range of enterprise zone initiatives.
As inflation falls over the months ahead, the Government will no doubt claim credit for achieving one of Rishi Sunak’s declared aims (that is, halving the rate of inflation); but what is really driving that change is new technologies across a whole swathe of everyday life. One of the biggest of these is the much lower cost of zero-carbon energy, and with much less dependency on the Middle East and Russia.
Implementing these changes is not a smooth process, as shown by the inadequate provision of electric charging points in preparation for phasing-out petrol and diesel cars in 2030; meanwhile, the lack of consistent three-phase electricity supply across the country is likely to hold back replacement of oil and gas home heating.
But technology continues to move forward remorselessly, and Generation X will have to keep abreast of these new opportunities if they don't want to spend their last working years in the service and health industries.
One recent innovation which is catching everyone's attention is the use of ChatGPT, a new drafting process driven by Artificial Intelligence which produces very presentable text. Universities are already expressing concern at the prospect of automated plagiarism of essays, and you can imagine all sorts of situations where the time spent in original thought could be set aside: the prospect of listening to someone delivering a sermon in church which was drafted on ChatGPT is horrendous!
I'm happy to give you a firm undertaking that these commentaries will not make use of this technology. Share Radio’s Thought for the Week will continue to be drafted by this member of the Baby Boomer generation!
Gavin Oldham OBE
Share Radio