Posts Tagged ‘pensions’
« Older Entries | Newer Entries »
Stephen Harper’s long overdue talk about Canada’s pension crisis
Wednesday, February 1st, 2012
Jan 30, 2012
We can try to offset the demographic arithmetic directly, whether through increased immigration, longer working lives, or even — to the extent policy can — encouraging people to have more children. And certainly there is much room for improvement in our anemic national productivity performance: just a half-a-percentage point faster growth in productivity, compounding year after year, would make the next generations wealthy enough to bear those projected higher costs without having to endure the implied rise in taxes.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, pensions, standard of living, tax
Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »
Old age benefits now slated for cost-cutting by Stephen Harper.
Wednesday, February 1st, 2012
Jan 31 2012
Harper had never mentioned changing the terms of old age security (OAS) in Parliament or any of his public speeches… The Prime Minister may have thought debt-enfeebled Europe, with its cradle-to-grave social programs, would be the perfect backdrop to signal a shift in policy. He might have assumed the economic logic of his stance would be self-evident to Canadians. What he apparently forgot was that he sought a mandate to govern for the next four years last May without telling voters that re-electing him meant their pensions were vulnerable.
Tags: budget, ideology, pensions, standard of living, tax
Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »
Research belies PM’s warning about OAS
Tuesday, January 31st, 2012
Jan. 31, 2012
“The analysis suggests that Canada does not face major challenges of financial sustainability with its public pension schemes,” and “there is no pressing financial or fiscal need to increase pension ages in the foreseeable future.”… That’s because, as Canada heads into the boomer crunch, it spends far less than the OECD average on public pensions. Further, Canada’s relatively high levels of immigration will partially offset the distortions of an aging population…
Tags: pensions, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Debates | 1 Comment »
Stephen Harper’s old-age pension cuts unnecessary
Saturday, January 28th, 2012
Jan 27 2012
There is no fiscal crisis in this country. True, the government predicts that the cost of pensions for the elderly, now about $35.6 billion, will triple by 2030… And when baby boomers start to die off, as they will from about 2020, spending on the elderly will start to decelerate on its own… the myth of pensioner excess provides an easy talking point for those anxious to cut social spending in Canada. The euro may be the true villain of the piece. But the story of the slothful Greek hairdresser is easier to understand.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, pensions, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | 5 Comments »
Paradigm, shifted [seniors]
Saturday, January 28th, 2012
Jan. 28, 2012
Money for fighter jets? Check. Money for more prisons? Check. Money for MP pensions? Check. Money for gazebos? Check. Money for seniors? Not so fast… / our Prime Minister touted as his own Canadian economic and financial successes for which previous governments were largely responsible and offered the same nostrums – lower taxes, cuts to social programs, minimal-restriction resource exploitation, more deregulation of the private sector – which were largely responsible for the crisis in the first place.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, pensions, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »
Does Harper really need to raise the retirement age?
Friday, January 27th, 2012
Jan. 27, 2012
the Canada Pension Plan is not in financial difficulty. Instead, the target of reform appears to be Old Age Security… Canadians are living longer… 5 years longer than was the case in 1967… The wellbeing of Canadian seniors has improved tremendously over the last 40 years — higher incomes, better consumption, and healthier lives. However, in the years approaching retirement ages, an increasing number of Canadians are unable to work due to disability, declining job skills, or other reasons… these Canadians may suffer as they wait for their public pension cheques to begin flowing.
Tags: budget, pensions, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »
Prime Minister Harper unveils grand plan to reshape Canada
Friday, January 27th, 2012
Jan. 27, 2012
Mr. Harper portrayed his agenda as a fix for a generation – a fix he claimed is necessary to confront the challenges of an aging population. Canada’s demographics, he warned, pose “a threat to the social programs and services that Canadians cherish.” Preserving those social programs will likely mean cuts elsewhere… he plans to make Canada’s old-age security program sustainable. What that means is unclear. He did not spell out whether seniors will have to wait longer to receive the benefit or whether clawbacks would be increased for higher income earners.
Tags: budget, pensions, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »
Five ways to boost Canada’s economy
Tuesday, January 3rd, 2012
Jan. 01, 2012
Keep Canada’s future retirees from sliding into poverty… Six leading Canadian pension experts… recently urged an expansion of the CPP… Build critical infrastructure… From crumbling bridges and choked roads to inadequate public transit, the needs outstrip available funds… Deregulate the relics of the pre-Internet economy… Low-cost competitive telecom services are a must-have… Unleash the innovation potential of Canadian companies… Canada spends 1 per cent of GDP on business R&D, compared to 1.6 per cent among wealthy countries
Tags: budget, globalization, ideology, pensions, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Defined benefits ‘can still work’ [pensions]
Thursday, December 15th, 2011
Dec. 15, 2011
In Australia, a nationwide switch away from defined benefit plans has led to widespread senior poverty. Half of Australian seniors live below the poverty line, and two thirds run out of pension income by age 75. Is that what we want here?” The beauty of DB plans is you know in advance what you’ll get out of them… you need to save $500,000 to provide yourself with an annual pension of $25,000, but that’s the reality. We owe it to people to help them get there – we need to make workplace pensions better, not worse.”
Tags: economy, ideology, pensions, rights, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | No Comments »
Expand CPP, experts urge
Wednesday, December 14th, 2011
Dec. 14, 2011
A group of pension experts, including a former chief actuary of the Canada Pension Plan, is calling on Canada’s finance ministers to commit to expanding the CPP. In an open letter Tuesday to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and his provincial and territorial counterparts, the group said a growing body of research indicates many Canadians will likely have inadequate savings to maintain their standard of living in retirement.
Tags: pensions, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »
Recent Comments