The UK state pension is the worst in the developed world in terms of its value verses average wages. It ranks bottom in a list of countries compiled by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), paying out just 29% of the average wage.
Top of the pension table in the data is the Netherlands (100.6%), followed by Portugal (94%) and Italy (93.2%). The second worst is Mexico (29.6%) but it is quite a jump to the third worst, Poland, which pays 38.6% of the average wage. The average pension of all the countries on the list is 62.9%.
Thus the drop in earnings from employed to retired in the UK is the largest in the developed world. That isn’t because the UK can’t afford pensions or that the UK economy isn’t strong enough to survive if we decided to end pensioner poverty. It is a political decision and the UK Government simply has a policy of not paying a good pension.
Open Minds on Independence #8