Pensions Goth loves to explain what’s going on in pensions, what Government, industry and regulators are up to and what changes might mean for members. Pensions Goth loves cats, heavy metal music and is passionate about the truth, data and making sense of pensions.
She also tweets as #Pensions_Goth and you can find her on blue sky at @pensionsgoth.bsky.social
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Welcome to Pensions Goth Blog
Insights, stories, commentary and thoughts on pensions policy and events.
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We can’t debate costs till we determine meaning
This FT article on European state pensions describes rising costs, ageing populations and repeated political failure. But I think we need to dig a little deeper and reflect on the original purpose of the system before contemplating change. State pensions were created to prevent poverty in old age and…
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Let’s start the New Year thinking about modern slavery
I know there’s a lot going on for all of us, and the world, at the moment, but I think it’s worth returning to this topic. Modern slavery remains widespread and deeply embedded in global supply chains. The International Labour Organisation estimates that around 49 million people are…
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Interactive pension tools and the problem of complex lives
The FCA is proposing to replace the existing pension projections framework for interactive digital tools, which was designed for static illustrations, with a new regime intended to support more flexible and personalised modelling. The aim is to allow providers to reflect different contribution patterns, retirement ages and ways…
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Dungeons, dragons, and pensions
I spent yesterday at Lincoln University offering students cake in exchange for taking a survey on the impact of social influencers on their attitudes to retirement. Students are very easy to bribe with cake, and the last trays went to three young women who said they would quite…
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Could annuity-style rules fix state pension unfairness?
Gareth Stears of Aries Insight recently shared an idea with me that I hadn’t seen explored elsewhere: using individual annuity-style factors to determine when people can access the state pension. Instead of everyone waiting for a fixed age, or taking early access with a steep actuarial reduction, his…
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Budgets are short term. Pensions are long term. Yet we keep running one through the other.
The Autumn Budget is an annual fiscal event designed to manage tax, spending, and borrowing in response to and within OBR forecasts. Budget announcements are often base on a reaction to short term economic changes rather than being designed to support financial structures which benefit from stability. However,…