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.
Blog categories
- Adequacy
- Advice
- AI
- Annuities
- Automatic enrolment
- Behavioural economics
- Benefits
- Carers
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The unresolved social care settlement
Political focus on reducing benefit spending, and debate about deserving and undeserving claimants, have weakened the social insurance principle that costs should be shared across society to protect vulnerable people. Population ageing and lower fertility mean that care costs will increasingly be supported by fewer workers. This has…
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Could equal parental leave help reduce the motherhood penalty?
Having children has a lasting effect on women’s earnings. Time out, part-time work, and less likelihood of promotion when competing with those not juggling care mean that five years after the birth of a first child, mothers’ monthly earnings are on average 42% lower than one year before…
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How did deferred pay become a financial product?
Workplace pensions were originally developed as an employee benefit, i.e. deferred salary to support those who could no longer work. However, without changing their essential role, they have changed in conception over the past few decades into a financial product, rather than part of an employment package. My…
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Entitled but missing out
Independent Age’s new report, The only way is up, is a really timely and important contribution to the adequacy debate. The report examines how increasing take-up of Pension Credit, Housing Benefit and Council Tax Reduction could affect pensioner poverty and state spending. Here are some key stats: In…
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Adequacy, Annuities, Automatic enrolment, Behavioural economics, Benefits, Carers, Consolidation, Contributions, Dashboards, Decumulation, Defined Benefit, Defined Contribution, Disability, Drawdown, Early access, Engagement, Ethnicity, Financial inclusion, Guidance/advice, Housing, Inflation, Investment, Pension freedoms, Pensions gap, Poverty, Retirement, Women
The first WFFI session
I ran the first Women’s Financial Future Initiative session today, over the lunch hour, with fifteen women at Bravura Solutions. The Initiative exists because the pension system already contains protections for the things that shape a lot of women’s working lives, such as time out for caring, part…
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Is the second Pensions Commission preparing to lower adequacy targets?
The Commission’s interim report does not say it will lower the first Commission’s target replacement rates, but it does build the analytical case for doing so. It introduces a new set of lower “policy element” replacement rates based on what the State Pension and minimum automatic enrolment contributions…