28 November 2006
People in their 40s and 50s have been warned not to be "greedy"
about their pensions.
Alan Pickering, former government pensions adviser and chair of
educational charity Life Academy, said they must not take
everything they are entitled to at the earliest age.
If they did the younger people in work who will create the
wealth to pay for their pensions might refuse to do so.
Instead, he said those approaching retirement should work longer
- even if it meant changing jobs - as a way of bridging what he
called the "generation gap".
Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Money Box, Mr Pickering said: "There
is still time to mend our ways and avoid the clash of the
generations.
"But if people in their late 40s and early 50s, in both private
and public sector pensions, insist on hanging on to everything they
are expecting from the pension system, younger workers will resent
it."
He said that people now paying in to a pension were not "buying
and freezing loaves of bread". Instead the contributions were a
down payment.
"We have staked a claim on the wealth that is going to be
created by the next generation. But if we are greedy in that demand
the next generation will refuse to pay for it," he said.
