Posts Tagged ‘pensions’
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Improving CPP is win-win for all
Friday, January 28th, 2011
January 26, 2011
Not only does the CPP cover most Canadians, it does it more cost-efficiently than any private for-profit that puts your pension at risk. A real government would see the proposal to improve the CPP as win-win. The public wins with a livable pension above the poverty level. The government wins threefold out of the risky business of subsidizing private insurance that doesn’t deliver, save money on subsidies, save money on welfare and finally, the savings on medical costs to seniors. Imagine eliminating poverty for seniors. Why not?
Tags: economy, ideology, participation, pensions, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Debates | No Comments »
Cost of food peanuts compared to price of poverty
Sunday, January 23rd, 2011
January 22, 2011
… about 60% of the regular guests at the soup kitchen have mental health and addiction illnesses, and their welfare and disability incomes don’t leave much for food. The hospital consolidation and move away from the psychiatric hospital model to more community-based treatment could further burden the food bank and soup kitchen. It’s like the social service system is designed to require full-time charitable organizations to fill the gaps for basic necessities. Put another way, the generosity of volunteers and philanthropic souls are a major line item in the provincial budget.
Tags: budget, homelessness, mental Health, pensions, poverty
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In Sweden, pension problems are so 1989
Sunday, January 23rd, 2011
January 21, 2011
… Sweden scrapped its traditional defined benefit pension for what’s called a “notional defined contribution” plan… tied to the national per capita real wage growth… Swedes contribute 18.5 per cent of their pay to the system: 16 per cent to the NDC and 2.5 per cent to a private account where money is invested in mutual funds of their choice. The public pension is… responsible for 75 per cent of the average monthly benefit for men at 17,000 Swedish kronor ($2,562 U.S.) and women at 12,000 kronor. The rest comes from occupational pensions negotiated between companies and unions.
Tags: economy, pensions, standard of living
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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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Aging ‘Silver tsunami’ delayed in Canada
Friday, December 31st, 2010
December 31, 2010
the so-called “silver tsunami” is indeed headed our way and could swamp our health-care and pension systems — but we’re unlikely to feel the major impact of Canada’s roughly 10 million boomers for a few years yet… largely because life expectancy has shot up more than a decade during the boomer’s lifetime, to 78 for men and 83 for women. “At 65, you’ve now got about 17 years ahead of you, so people aren’t going to quit work, sit on their rear ends and collect a pension.”
Tags: disabilities, Health, participation, pensions, standard of living
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Talk is cheap [cost of living increases to CPP & OAS]
Friday, December 31st, 2010
December 30, 2010
The CPP increase effective Jan. 1 is 1.7% or in dollars $25.83 per month, whereas the OAS and GIS benefits based on the same CPI will only increase 0.05% or in dollars $2.61 per month and $3.29 more per month for the GIS — giving a grand total to all of those seniors who only collect these two benefits of $ 5.90 per month… the mounting costs of food, electricity and heat are pushing thousands of seniors below Statistics Canada’s low-income cut-off… action should be taken instead of a lot of worthless chatting over the past three years.
Tags: budget, pensions, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Delivery System | No Comments »
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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