Retirement not on the cards for wealthy UK individually
A report by Barclays Bank has today indicated that around 60% of wealthy individuals in the UK have no plans to retire and will indeed work on into their later years. It would appear that more and more the traditional retirement age is being cast aside and indeed the concept of retirement is something which many people are not willing to consider.
This comes at a time when the UK government is looking to scrap the 65-year-old retirement age in favour of a more flexible approach in the future. The 60% figure compares to 54% in the US, 46% in Japan, 44% in Spain and 34% in Switzerland which would indicate that the UK has one of the hardest working business arenas in the world. The ability to work well beyond your "traditional" retirement age is something that more and more people will now take up which should eventually lead to larger and larger private pension pots.
There are many in the UK that believe the state pension will inevitably be means tested in future therefore those on higher salaries and with significant assets could in fact see their state pension cut to zero in the years ahead. Whether it is fair to take away funding paid in by high net worth taxpayers to compensate those who have not had the same opportunity is another matter for debate.
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