[andyt]

You can delay your CPP until you're 70 and then get a larger payout - would that help?

[Freakinoldguy]

andyt andyt:

You can delay your CPP until you're 70 and then get a larger payout - would that help?

Nope I started drawing it, so at age 65 it's combined with the OAS and replaces a portion of my Military pension.

I guess I'll wait to see if it passes and then get ahold of someone who can actually explain it.

But my guess is that we'll be getting boned............again.

[andyt]

It's just a trial balloon at this point, and as Harper said, it would not affect people already getting it anyway, so no bone for you.

[martin14]

maybe FOG, but I think you are old enough, the govt wont implement the
program to you, or on a reduced / graduated basis.

People under 50-55 will bear this.

[bootlegga]

It would impress me if Harper had the balls to go through with this - but I'm guessing public opinion will make him to back off.

[BeaverFever]

ShepherdsDog ShepherdsDog:

$1:

Retiring at 55 is already fast becoming a thing of the past

A thing of the past? It was something that came into fad in the mid to late eighties and as you pointed out, not that practical in most people's plans nowadays.

Yeah and the only people in a position to take advantage of it were people who joined a DB plan in those days and stayed in it. If you blinked you missed your chance.

[andyt]

$1:

Experts question severity of Harper's public pension sustainability problem

OTTAWA - To hear the prime minister and his cabinet talk, Canada's public pension system is unsustainable and needs major repair — likely in the form of a higher eligibility age for Old Age Security payments.
But number-crunching and projections by many economists and by the federal government's chief actuary suggest the sustainability problem is not severe.
And experts say raising the eligibility age risks hurting the most vulnerable in society.
"In order to have a system that's still in place and viable and sustainable 10, 20, 30 years from now, we need to make changes today," Government House Leader Peter Van Loan said Monday.
He was expanding on Stephen Harper's announcement last week that he would soon act to ensure the future of unfunded portions of the retirement income system.
Van Loan and Harper say no one who is already retired or close to retirement will see benefits slashed. But officials have made clear they are looking at Old Age Security over the medium and long term, since costs are expected to soar over the next few decades — even as the number of taxpayers dwindles.
The government points to the chief actuary's latest report that shows the combined cost of OAS and the Guaranteed Income Supplement rising to $108 billion in 2030 from $41 billion this year.
But since the economy is growing at the same time, the same report shows that those programs cost about 2.41 per cent of gross domestic product this year and will rise to about 3.14 per cent in 2030.
That's the peak. After 2030, the costs — measured as a share of the total economy — slide back slowly to reach today's levels again by about 2055.
"I don't think there's the problem that some people think," said Byron Spencer, a demographics economist at McMaster University in Hamilton.
He and his colleague Frank Denton have dissected the numbers and projections and found that, if Ottawa made no changes to any retirement benefits, taxpayers' contributions would have to increase to ensure other programs weren't cut.
Taxpayers currently contribute about 6.2 per cent of their wages to pay premiums into the Canada Pension Plan and in taxes to cover the general cost of OAS and GIS benefits. Twenty years from now, taxpayers would have to contribute about 12.5 per cent of their wages for the same package of retirement benefits, the researchers found.
"There's a trade off," Spencer said. "We could maintain the system as it is, and that would mean roughly doubling the contribution rates for the retirement income system as we have it at the moment ... or we could have people receive those benefits at a somewhat later age."
Officials say they are eyeing other countries' experiences with gradual increases in the retirement age, to see what Canada can learn.
In the United States, the government decided in the 1980s to move the retirement age from 65 to 67, but didn't start implementing the policy until 2003. Now, the retirement age is inching up by one month a year. The policy won't be fully implemented until 2025.
In Sweden, the retirement age is indexed to life expectancy.
The United Kingdom, Australia and some European countries have also adopted a slow, gradual approach to raising the age at which seniors can start collecting public pension benefits.
Even a gradual move can be jarring to a country's psyche, says Spencer.
"The big question of whether to keep age 65 as a fixed marker is a real question. It's been in place since Bismarck, since the late 1800s."
Raising the eligibility age to 67 is more than just a mental hurdle for many low-income workers, however.
The people on the low end of the income scale have shorter life expectancies than richer people, notes Andrew Jackson, chief economist for the Canadian Labour Congress and one of the country's top experts on retirement security.
For many low-skilled jobs, manual labour is difficult to sustain after the age of 65, he adds.
And since the Guaranteed Income Supplement for low-income seniors is tied tightly to receiving OAS, Ottawa can't really raise the age for one program without raising the age for the other, Jackson said.
"For people on a low income, they're really going to lose out."
OAS and GIS have been widely credited for keeping poverty at bay for tens of thousands of seniors, adds Matthew Mendelsohn, director of the Mowat Centre for Policy Innovation in Toronto.
So any changes in federal policy should be shaped to make sure poverty among seniors is not exacerbated, he said.
"It's often people who have worked (low-skilled) hard jobs who are more in need of the public system when they turn 65," he said. "It is they who would be more severely penalized by changes."

Lower the income at which OAS is clawed back. Sombody earning 67k in retirement isn't going to miss the few bucks that OAS represents. Somebody barely scraping by sure will tho.

[Caelon]

andyt andyt:

$1:

Experts question severity of Harper's public pension sustainability problem

But since the economy is growing at the same time, the same report shows that those programs cost about 2.41 per cent of gross domestic product this year and will rise to about 3.14 per cent in 2030.
That's the peak. After 2030, the costs — measured as a share of the total economy — slide back slowly to reach today's levels again by about 2055.
"I don't think there's the problem that some people think," said Byron Spencer, a demographics economist at McMaster University in Hamilton.He and his colleague Frank Denton have dissected the numbers and projections and found that, if Ottawa made no changes to any retirement benefits, taxpayers' contributions would have to increase to ensure other programs weren't cut.
Taxpayers currently contribute about 6.2 per cent of their wages to pay premiums into the Canada Pension Plan and in taxes to cover the general cost of OAS and GIS benefits. Twenty years from now, taxpayers would have to contribute about 12.5 per cent of their wages for the same package of retirement benefits, the researchers found.
"

The fellow is talking out of both sides of his mouth. He first states the rise from 2.41% to 3.14% and fall back is no big deal even though the time span is decades. Then he goes on to calcultate the tax burden would double from 6.2 to 12.5%. THAT IS A BIG DEAL.

If tax payers would be required to pay 1/8 of their total income to support CPP and seniors what is left for them to build savings for their own retirement. If they were fortunate enough to have a 6% cushion at current rates to save for their own retirement it will disappear in the next 15 years or so. Voil a whole generation of seniors that will be at or near the poverty line due to paying for the previous generation. Not sound economics.

There is nore than one solution, but demographic bubble of the boomer generation brings a multitude of problems to our social system from retirement plans, social safety net provisions, health care demands, nursing home lodging and subsidies, etc, etc, etc. The problems need to be discussed openly and affordable sustainable solutions need to be adopted. OR we could wait for a crisis and throw band aids at it until the system collapses. That appears to be the opposition strategy of late.

[fifeboy]

This guy

had A Modest Proposal. Steve heard about it, thought it could be modified to solve his "Seniors Problem" and tried to have him join the CPC team. However, Peter, hearing about it crawled out of bed and told him it was only a satire. End of story! Thank you Peter.

[Freakinoldguy]

What everyone seems to forget is that the Boomers paid for this plan many times over in taxes and now when it comes time to use what their taxes supposedly purchased they get the line.

We've got no money.

If successive Governments hadn't mismanaged the tax revenues that the largest tax base in history paid for in the past 66 years, we wouldn't need to be discussing this would we?

[andyt]

Burden of fixing pension system not shared equally

The OAS starts being clawed back at about $69,500 and people who have an income greater than about $110,000 lose it all.

So if you earn more than that, it doesn't matter whether the age threshold for receiving the OAS is set back a couple of years; you aren't going to get it anyway. What would matter to you if you were in that bracket, as many retiring MPs will be because of their large pensions, is if the government were to raise income taxes to pay for the increased cost of providing a more comfortable requirement for lower and middle-income seniors.

In other words, most Canadians will have to work longer so that the wealthiest don't have to pay more taxes.



Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Bu ... z1l7D3lDBg

[OnTheIce]

Freakinoldguy Freakinoldguy:

What everyone seems to forget is that the Boomers paid for this plan many times over in taxes and now when it comes time to use what their taxes supposedly purchased they get the line.

We've got no money.

If successive Governments hadn't mismanaged the tax revenues that the largest tax base in history paid for in the past 66 years, we wouldn't need to be discussing this would we?

The boomers paid, but didn't pay enough. We all didn't pay enough which isn't the fault of the boomers, it's the fault of consecutive governments for failing to realise the problem.

Remember, the OAS age used to be 70.

[Freakinoldguy]

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

Freakinoldguy Freakinoldguy:

What everyone seems to forget is that the Boomers paid for this plan many times over in taxes and now when it comes time to use what their taxes supposedly purchased they get the line.

We've got no money.

If successive Governments hadn't mismanaged the tax revenues that the largest tax base in history paid for in the past 66 years, we wouldn't need to be discussing this would we?

The boomers paid, but didn't pay enough. We all didn't pay enough which isn't the Mault of the boomers, it's the fault of consecutive governments for failing to realise the problem.

Remember, the OAS age used to be 70.

And maybe that's where it should get set back to, but, only when Clement goes after those gold plated and basically unearned pensions that the our past, present and future politicians are earning.

So I guess this isn't so much an Old Age Security Pension dispute as it is a blatent Government misuse or abuse of taxes dispute since, if they hadn't fucked the pooch in the last 45 years by running unrealistic deficits to pay for their largess this would be a moot point.