Is it fair to force retirement at 65 years of age?
As we covered in one of our earlier post, the EU authorities have upheld the UK government's statutory retirement age of 65. However, as UK stock markets continued to plummet and many pension pots show substantial reductions, is it really fair to force anyone to retire at 65 years of age and begin taking income from their pension arrangements?
When you consider that the UK stock market has fallen from more 6000 points to around about 3500 today there is real concern that many pensioners will be disadvantaged by being forced to retire in the current economic climate. When you consider that potentially some pension pots could have fallen by nearly 50% over the last few years this will substantially reduce their expected income.
While there are new rules which allow the deferment of income, the problem is that many pensioners who are being forced out of their employment will need to replace the lost income via their pension fund arrangements. In reality deferment may be an option for some but in the real world many will not be able to accommodate this potential option. Even though the UK authorities have indicated a possible change in statutory retirement regulations in 2011 this will come far too late for thousands of the older UK workforce.
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