State pensions

Presentation given at the IFS Green Budget launch, 6 February 2013

This presentation about the how the Dilnot commission proposals could be financed was given at the a seminar organised by Lord Lipsey and Partnership at the House of Lords on 23rd January 2013

As well as questions about who is better or worse off this bill is representative of something deeper and more interesting about pensions policy. Article in the Guardian.

Today the Government will publish a White Paper detailing plans to replace the current Basic State Pension and State Second Pension with a single state pension. The proposed reforms would be a welcome simplification of the current rather complex rules, particularly in the short run, but they also imply a reduction in the state pensions that most people born after around 1970 can expect to receive from the state. This cut in the generosity of pension benefits for currently young people will help reduce public spending on pensioners in the longer-run as pressures from an ageing population intensify. Reducing state support will also increase the incentives for younger cohorts to save privately for their retirement.

Slides and Audio from the presentation given at the IFS Public Economics Lecture series, December 2012

Last week marked the 70th anniversary of the Beveridge report. Today’s social security system bears almost no resemblance to the one he envisaged. His ambition for a system of social insurance in which benefits would be paid in return for contributions to those experiencing unemployment, sickness or old age did not prove robust to changes in the economy, in demography and in the labour market. Other benefits, especially means-tested benefits, have been layered on top of the original social insurance benefits to create a system which is too complex and, at times, incoherent.

Made to Pensions Research Network, University of Westminster 22 June 2012

Presentation given at 'Pensions in Higher Education- annual schemes update', London, 7th March 2012

These slides were delivered as part of the IFS public economics lectures 2011.

On Monday the Government published its long advertised Green Paper on state pension reform. Much press speculation has suggested that this would lead to a flat rate pension of £140 a week for all new pensioners from 2015. But the commitments that the Government have made not to increase public spending on pensions and to honour pension rights that have already been accrued means that introducing such a pension will not be possible on anything like this timetable.

This presentation was delivered as an 'IFS Public Economics Lecture', December 2010.

This presentation was delivered at the IFS 2010 Election Briefing on 27 April 2010.

This presentation was given at the IFS post-Budget briefing on 25th March 2010.