Johnny Munkhammar skrev på denna blogg från 2004 till sin död 2012. Bloggen är upprätthållen som ett minne och som referens till Johnnys arbete av Johnny Munkhammars minnesfond.

This blog was operated by Johnny Munkhammar from 2004 until 2012 when he passed away. This blog is now in a memorialized state and operated by the Johnny Munkhammar fund.
Prenumerera på nyhetsbrevet munkhammar.org
Thursday 28/03/2024, 10:01:49

30/11/2005 10:19:50 am
Retirement Age. The Economist has a leader about the demographic situation in Europe in the latest issue. The fact that we live longer is a great success, but it also means that public systems that were constructed for antoher time have to be changed. With the systems of today, ever fewer people are supporting an increasing number who don′t work. Since work is the foundation for any prosperity and welfare, that is not a positive development. Thus, The Economist points out that raising the pensions age is part of the solution but not sufficient:

"Government must revamp not just pensions but also other benefits to make sure that they are not encouraging people to leave the workforce prematurely. Early-retirement schemes, designed to help young people into work, were based on the ′lump-of-labour′ fallacy, the idea that there is only a fixed amount of jobs to go around. These must go. And in Britain and in some Nordic countries, the prority must be to stop incapacity benefits from being misused."

It is sometimes claimed that people in Western Europe choose to work so little compared with for example Americans because we value other things than work higher. This is not true. We simply have systems that punish work with high taxes and reward non-working by giving us amlost as much money for not working. This encourages us not to work. Should we have more of a free choice between working and non-working, we should have vastly lower taxes and thus pay for benefits for not working ourselves. For example, there should not be a fixed public pensions age at all. Then, we have a free choice. And then, we would solve many problems mentioned above - when we pay for ourselves, it is not someone else′s problem if we don′t work so much. But likely, when the state doesn′t reward non-working, we would work more.

<-- Home
RSS 2.0