Quaint as it now seems, not long ago this was considered a good basic plan: Work hard all your life and then retire with a comfortable pension. In recent times, a new plan has replaced it: Work hard all your life and then all bets are off. The notion of retirement security in exchange for a lifetime of hard work — a central element in the implicit social contract between capital and labour in the postwar years — has been effectively tossed aside, as corporations have become more insatiable in their demands and governments have increasingly abandoned workers. Stephen Harper’s government hiked the eligibility age for Old Age Security benefits to 67, effectively depriving all future Canadian retirees of two years of basic retirement income. And it has steadfastly refused to strengthen the Canada Pension Plan, leaving retired Canadians with an average income of $18,000 a year in public pension benefits — far less than what a full-time minimum wage earner makes in Ontario. And now, the Harper government is engaging in a fresh frontal assault on the retirement incomes of beleaguered Canadian workers. Read the rest of this article The new world of retirement: Security for the rich, risk for everyone else by Linda McQuaig at ipolitics.ca/2014/07/30/retirement-for-the-rich-hardship-for-the-rest/
Posted on: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 13:55:33 +0000
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