Archive for the ‘Social Security Debates’ Category
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The forgotten caregivers of pension reform
Monday, January 10th, 2011
Jan. 10, 2011
Millions of workers − primarily women − struggle with balancing their caregiving responsibilities and employment demands… [Many] reduce their working hours or leave their jobs altogether for a period of time to care for infirm parents. Fortunately, there is a promising remedy… The current definition of caregiving in the CPP can be stretched to include the care of persons with serious illness or severe disability… Other countries, including Australia, Britain, Germany, Norway and Finland, stave off income insecurity by providing some form of caregiver pension.
Tags: disabilities, Health, pensions, standard of living, women
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Wrong decision on CPP
Friday, January 7th, 2011
Jan 07 2011
The CPP is an efficiently-run pension plan that delivers the security of predetermined benefits at a very low cost. Instead, the government prefers PRPPs, a private sector scheme that will reward banks, mutual fund and insurance companies for years of bad behaviour… the financial industry has been gouging consumers and pillaging their hard-earned savings for decades. Canadians see through this scheme and know that expanding the CPP is the better plan for them to save toward their future retirement.
Tags: ideology, pensions, rights, standard of living
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Tough choices ahead as little-known pension changes take effect
Thursday, December 30th, 2010
December 30, 2010
The changes provide another example of the Conservative government’s increasing use of budget legislation to pass a wide range of policies that are not spelled out in the original budget documents.
The latest notices… available online, explain the change. Canadians can now choose to receive a larger monthly benefit if they choose to start collecting CPP after age 65. Conversely, collecting CPP before age 65 will mean a decrease in benefits from the previous formula.
Tags: participation, pensions, rights, standard of living
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Ottawa caved in to provinces on CPP
Tuesday, December 28th, 2010
Dec 28 2010
Proponents of the private approach are not ignorant of reality. They just don’t care that most Canadians have trouble making ends meet and few are able to make substantial contributions to RRSPs. They don’t care that future retirees will not have enough pension dollars to make ends meet. Clearly, the best way for most Canadians to improve their prospects in retirement is through improvement of the CPP… And the federal government has caved on the issue. So much for political leadership in the broad public interest
Tags: pensions, poverty, privatization, rights, standard of living
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A simple solution: Seniors living in poverty
Monday, December 27th, 2010
Dec 27 2010
… the GIS had a flaw: seniors had to apply for it annually. Some didn’t and some couldn’t. Lately, that flaw — plus the rising cost of food, electricity and heat — has pushed thousands of seniors back into poverty. As of 2008, 5.8 per of Canadians over 65 fell below StatsCan’s low-income cut-off. There is a simple step Prime Minister Stephen Harper could take to reverse this trend — a change his own advisers are recommending: send the GIS automatically to every eligible senior.
Tags: budget, ideology, pensions, standard of living
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Feds to step in with pension plan reforms
Monday, December 27th, 2010
Dec. 26, 2010
Ottawa is planning changes to company pension plan rules that fall under federal jurisdiction in a bid to help the plans weather short-term downturns and better protect workers…. The proposal would require a plan sponsor to fully fund pension plan benefits when a plan is terminated and allow sponsors, plan members, and retirees of a plan in trouble to negotiate a plan restructuring… the Superintendent of Financial Institutions estimated that 83% of all defined benefit pension plans that fell under federal jurisdiction were underfunded with estimated liabilities exceeding assets.
Tags: pensions, standard of living, tax
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The right kind of pension reform
Thursday, December 23rd, 2010
Dec. 22, 2010
Increasing CPP contributions… is the stick, forcing Canadians to save, but via the heavy hand of the state. Providing investment vehicles to incentivize savings, such as the Tax Free Savings Account and the new PRPP, is the carrot. Like us, the Tories appear to prefer the carrot-based approach, which respects the ethos of personal responsibility and choice.
Tags: ideology, pensions, standard of living
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Let’s take the CPP – and be creative
Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010
Dec. 22, 2010
… we should develop a second tier of the CPP that should apply to earnings over $25,000 and extend beyond the current ceiling of $47,300. Tier 2 should only be compulsory – or feature automatic participation with the right to opt out – for those employees not already belonging to a workplace pension plan that meets some minimum standards. Virtually all proponents of pension reform want reforms to be fully funded… until the fate of the CPP is clearer, it will be hard to advise Canadians on whether participation in a PRPP makes sense.
Tags: pensions, rights, standard of living, tax
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Public option best strategy to buttress pension system
Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010
Dec 22 2010
The CPP… both lowers the costs to the individual saver as well as reducing the individual’s risk. It should also be noted that the present level of CPP payments is considered inadequate by any serious analysis… Higher RRSP contributions would mean a tax-expenditure or a subsidy to savers. But such a subsidy would be paid for by the general taxpayer and the largest benefits would go to those in the highest income tax brackets… increased RRSP contributions will make the financial institutions better off, while an increase in CPP contributions will make Canadian pensioners better off.
Tags: budget, pensions, standard of living, tax
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We don’t really know (private vs public pensions)
Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010
Dec. 21, 2010
Only two major OECD countries, France and Germany, have pension systems that give their average retiree a higher percentage of average pre-retirement disposable income… Moreover, it is by no means clear that Canadians will now lack sufficient retirement income to live independently and with dignity. Poverty among Canadian seniors is among the lowest in the OECD, so our retirement system is not failing the least well off. And the wealthy are generally retiring comfortably. So if there’s a problem, it lies in the middle.
Tags: pensions, privatization, standard of living, tax
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