How an Independent Scotland could reset the basic state pension. The basic UK state pension is the lowest in the developed world at 21.6% of final earnings. UK citizens are expected to make private provision for their retirement. This leaves the poorest, in particular women, locked into pensioner poverty. A newly Independent Scotland may want to borrow ideas from other countries with better pension arrangements.
Reducing the risk of poverty in old age is challenging. UK Governments of both political colours, have for several generations, deliberately kept state pensions low, to force those that can afford it, to take out private pensions, in order to boost the UK finance sector. Two million pensioners live below the poverty line.
An Independent Scotland will have to look further afield than the U.K. outmoded pension model. Pension models in Denmark, Ireland and the USA are considered