Denmark is set to have the highest retirement age in Europe, after lawmakers voted to raise it to 70.
Parliamentarians passed a bill mandating the rise on Thursday, with 81 votes in favor and 21 against.
The new law will apply to people born after December 31, 1970. The current retirement age is 67 on average, but it can go up to 69 for those born on January 1, 1967, or later.
The rise is needed in order to be able to “afford proper welfare for future generations,” employment minister Ane Halsboe-Jørgensen said in a press release Thursday.
I don’t think the shithead oligarchs who barely work a week outta the year should get to tell the working class how long they are forced to work.
And where do you expect them to work? No one is going to hire a 70 year old! (Except the US, bonus if they’re a rapist and felon)
This is getting ridiculous…
I have very little confidence I’ll get a retirement. Even though I’m contributing to the Canada Pension Plan, I’m so far away that by the time I get there I have serious doubts the program will still exist. There is obviously calculations they make to determine the health of the fund, but I don’t think they are properly taking into account how much extra strain extended life expectancies will take on the program. If they plan for people to be on retirement for an average of 15 years, and suddenly that changes to 20 or 25 years, that fund will dry up quick. Combine that with the influx of boomer retirees and to me it doesn’t look so good.
Work all your life to feed the pyramid pension scheme and when you finally retire, you’re too old to do anything meaningful with your life.
So this rise for Denmark does not kick in on people born before 1970, so it does not count for baby boomers or the oldest and usually wealthiest sub set of Gen X. Oh, also Danish politicians can still retire at 60 right?
This is fairly typical with these age rises, applies to everybody BUT the largest group who have caused all the problem by being the largest group and who often haven’t paid their fair share in a lot of schemes as a lot of state pension schemes are a Ponzi scheme rather than an actual investment fund, including the Danes as its paid directly out of taxation.
This means all the poor fucks who will now retire later will still be paying for that largest ever group to retire at an earlier age.
What is particularly insidious with this type of change is that the private pension age has also been raised for people in the UK. This means even if you can afford to you cant take it as early as you once could. Absolutely done because they will be means testing the UK state pension at some point.
I generally think all politicians should be forced to retire from political work by at most 60yo.
I agree, also term limits for all of them.
However its egregious for them to be raising the mandatory retirement age for everybody else while leaving their volentary retirement age where it is, and with a particularly fat pension, its about £4k a month for only twenty years of service.
Danish millennials and gen xers who work in retirement or old age support roles should change careers. And zers and alphas getting into it should consider hiatuses.
in this thread: Americans who have absolutely no idea what society looks like in Denmark. Or anywhere outside of the US actually.
Most Europeans have a poor understanding of what the USA looks like as well… Turns out that most people have no idea what most of the rest of the world looks like! This could even mean inside of their own country! The USA is quite large and very much varied.
For the topic of this thread in particular I see a lack of knowledge that the average lifespan in the US is a full four years shorter than in other comparable countries.
https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/u-s-life-expectancy-compare-countries/
The USA is also significantly bigger than every single one of those “comparable” countries. Actually bigger (population, size, really just about any size metric possible) than all of them combined. It’s a bit disingenuous to clump all of the USA together. Which fuels and proves my point about outsiders not understanding the USA.
The range in “comparable” countries is also about 4 years… Why do you think that is? I mean the countries are basically right next to each other like states are here… yet for some reason despite sharing a border Switzerland and Germany have a 4.1 year difference in male life expectancy.
I’m willing to bet money that different parts of the US, possibly even on a state by state or even region by region location would have wildly varying life expectancy than is being insinuated with a single monolithic number for “the USA”… Just like the EU countries listed here…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_life_expectancy
Turns out that is wildly true… The top 30 states all compete with the numbers given and fall within the ranges between Germany and Switzerland given in the charts in your link.
Edit:
If you drill down to counties… which is at the very bottom of the wiki article. You can see even more disparity. And the only reason I bring this up is that some counties in the USA are bigger than entire as countries in the EU. https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/largest-counties-in-the-united-states-by-total-area.html
There is issues with getting infrastructure EVERYWHERE when the country is just so damn big and sparse.
Edit2: I should clarify that I don’t doubt that the EU overall is better off… Mostly because being fat is a huge problem in the USA that is much less prevalent than the EU overall. But just clumping shit willy nilly is exactly what I was referencing… Mississippi vs California is a world of difference.
The channel Economics Explained actually covered Denmark on this weeks video essay. The impression that I got is that they really have their shit together, even these planned retirement age changes are expected to be gradual so people can plan for it.
I think the average lifespan in America is 67.
People would be truly working until death, there.
Try 78: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/life-expectancy.htm
Obviously not everyone reaches that. Even if you set the retirement age at 50, some people would die first.
I mean US retirement age is 67, so we’re doing that already.
You guys are retiring?
I’m stashing cheap pistols around my house, so yes I’ve got a plan
Heh. “67 SO FAR” – homer
I am a teacher and I could not imagine staying in a classroom for another 7 years. I barely made it to 63. My retirement begins next week. I just hope 50k a year is enough. That was my goal and when I it it I said I am done.
Congrats on retirement! What are you planning on doing with your newfound freedom?
Well I was going to go out west for a month but I don’t feel it is worth the hassle of putting up with the possibility of dealing with ICE. While I am a pale white old fucker my wife is not.
This is America, work a different job.
I guess I will go back to part time in 6 months.
why are so many people ok with raising the retirement age? it’s literally of zero benefit to anyone who isn’t insanely wealthy enough to just quit working whenever they want. if they ever worked in the first place
We are heading into a period with severe labor shortages as the elderly retire. Who will take care of the elderly? Who will handle be their doctors/nurses? This is not a problem that can be solved with money unfortunately. You need to either relax migration rules so foreigners take these jobs (very unpopular atm) or increase the retirement age.
The regulation is such an insane patchwork, sometimes people can retire earlier than the normal retirement age, if they’ve been working for many years. And if you health is bad there are special programs for that. (Yes as in multiple!)
But clearly as you state, the system is made to benefit the rich more an more. The social democrats who are part of the government are no longer looking after the average Joe, but making things worse, and then they make special programs for propaganda purposes.
A lot of people have been convinced this is necessary, as life expectancy increases, disregarding increased automation and wealth in our society.if you health is bad there are special programs for that.
Hate that, work until you’re 70 and too old to enjoy retirement. Or work until you’re so sick you can’t and then you don’t get to enjoy retirement.
A system designed to ensure you work until your labor has no value. Squeezing for everything you’re worth
Because it’s what the insanely wealthy want and that’s the only thing that counts
Because poor pensioners dying would look bad politically.
Stems from low birth rate and an insanely large boomer group.
It’s of benefit to society to reduce the dependency ratio (the ratio of non-working to working people)
If the number of people the government needs to support with state pensions rises, but the working age population doesn’t rise nearly as much, government finances become more and more pinched
reduce the dependency ratio
i can’t help but think this “problem” could be solved in ways other than forcing people to work until they’re 70. like for instance TAX THE FUCKING RICH
i know propaganda is a powerful weapon, but you should be extremely skeptical of the people saying “the problem can’t be solved any other way…” and what their motivation might be (spoiler: keep themselves rich at the expense of everyone else. including, apparently, the elderly who have already spent their life working)
Most people can’t work at that age, and no one will hire you like after 55 anyways. So stupid and evil.
And you’re saying this about that bastion of right-wing economic policy… Denmark? Tax-to-GDP ratio in the mid 40s, second highest amongst OECD countries?
No-one here has said that increasing the pension age is the only solution. Indeed, on its own, it probably doesn’t solve the problem. But it’s one part of a plan. Other parts include addressing the other side of the equation - young people, so encouraging immigration and increasing birth rates (but Danish net immigration is already about 1% of its population per year which isn’t low, high levels of immigration are unpopular, and increasing birth rates is difficult and makes the problem worse for at least 18 years). Tax policy is another aspect of it, but you have to realise that having an older population doesn’t mean that working population is willing or able to bear higher tax rates (even if you try to target them at the rich) That is to say, if you have a high average tax rate already, as you do in Denmark, increasing it further to pay for an aging population is likely to start having adverse effects, and it doesn’t matter why you’re increasing taxation.
i don’t know what to tell you then, other than people might not be more excited to have kids knowing that they’ll be working until they’re 70. unless their plan is to move the entire family out of the country. which also makes the problem worse
I don’t think this will affect people’s desire to have children at all (Denmark’s strong social security system has a much stronger, and positive, effect on that).
I am of child-having age and my decision is based around what my life would be like for the next 18 or so years, not would it would be like at retirement. If I were to think about that, possibly having someone around to help me out and let me retire earlier would probably be a very tiny nudge in favour of having children.
lol “hey can you give grandpa a ride to work? his back’s gone out again and he’s used up all his pto”
Far from perfect, and with rising inequality, but Denmark has generally been relatively decent when it comes to taxing the rich and high-income individuals.
As born in the 90s I’m expected to retire at the earliest by 72. I don’t understand this at all though - I’m expecting a reduced need for labourers as many things become increasingly automatised anyway, so it’s an entirely wrong focus in the first place.
How are you gonna stop “the rich” from simply taking all of their digitally stored wealth and leaving the country that taxes them?
Not disagreeing with you necessarily, i’m just curious. With borders being more for show than anything and the ability to purchase a passport from countries with low or no income tax, how do you propose to stop them?
This is where the nationalists win against the globalists in all types of debate. They atleast have a strategy, even if it leads to other humanitarian problems. You have to start giving more of a shit about your own community, either by becoming rich and giving it back to the community or let the rich leave and deal with the aftermath of it.
I hate this argument.
If they’re not paying their fair share of taxes then leaving is beneficial. It’s like saying “yeah but if you ask the thieves to pay for their stolen goods they might leave the store”
Totally agree with you, im 41 and all my live i head this shit excuse innmy country that the billonaires takes all their money and fly, so we need to shit all the people only to save a small group of billonaires for nothing, they never fly away, it more expensive than taxes but, you know, the assholes thinks that defending billonaires could give them money
Its not so much an argument as it is the logical conclusion to open borders. They can leave if they want. Especially if they haven’t broken any laws. They simply leave when a law gets voted through.
What if they’re paying their share/most of their share of taxes now, but a change pushes them into not doing so? These things ar enot all-or-nothing.
In something like Denmark’s case, I could see an argument. In the US? Rich people pay nearly nothing, so I think forcing them to pay taxes is a slam dunk
They never leave, that’s propaganda from the rich class (Massachusetts passed a millionaires tax and I saw in person this to be a bunch of bologna). They obviously live there for reasons other than taxes.
They definitely do.
During the financial crisis in the 90’s, Sweden was close to defaulting due to the rich moving their wealth out of Sweden.
I would want to understand that data, as it was a lot easier to just say things are happening in the 90s than today. The rich tried to say this would happen 3 years ago too. However, in the current police state in America where there is no privacy for anyone, we have a concrete example of raising the taxes on the parasite class and there was no data to back this claim.
Why haven’t they already?
it’s not an easy thing to solve, and a large part of it comes down to not having a country where greedy selfish assholes make all the rules and hoodwink the populace into supporting policy that completely the opposite of in their own best interest
i don’t know about other countries, but investing more in the “common good” has basically become a pejorative where i live, where people who benefit the most from publicly funded resources whine the loudest about “socialism”
it may be too late. there may be no solution, other than the late 1700s french sort
How are you gonna stop “the rich” from simply taking all of their digitally stored wealth and leaving the country that taxes them?
Their wealth is digitally stored, but their business isn’t. A car dealership or a Walmart are physical things that they can’t take with them unless they close up shop entirely and miss out on the revenue, and those are taxed too.
This does nothing for the current problem, which is the single largest group of people, Boomers, needing their State Pension paid, as Denmark is paid for out of general taxation, and these changes do not apply to this group, as it only applies to some of Gen X and younger. This is the same group PAYING for the boomers retirement, so they being asked to pay more than ever before and getting fucked over with the higher retirement age.
The high dependency ratio is going to continue to be a problem for quite a while. The time to solve the aging population problem was decades ago when their could have been policy to create budget surpluses, so that the boomer generation paid for its own care. But that didn’t happen and we can’t go back in time to fix it. All solutions now suck because that opportunity has been lost: you can screw the boomers by leaving them to die covered in bedsores and filth, or you can screw the younger generations by making them pay for care, or some combination.
None of which is tied to raising the retirement age for the younger groups, this does fuck all to fix the actual problem.
None of which is tied to medical or elder care for the Danes, this is also mostly funded by taxation, again mostly paid by the young.
The actual solution is to start means testing Ponzi scheme state pension funds with a tapered reduction based on private pension income. However that will never every happen to this particular group as they are the largest single group, and this will be a single issue voting matter for them as they are in the middle of retiring.
Social care should be self funded by the government forcing sell off, of assets like the home, for those that can for this generation.
It means more tax take and less superannuation spending. Depends on the country’s superannuation system, of course.
That means more money available for all the things taxes are used for, many of which are very very necessary.
How can you justify cuts to the healthcare system because you claim to not have enough money, but then pay pensioners some thousand dollars a fortnight, regardless of what assets or other income they have?
Seems like they oughta tax the rich higher, not make the poorer work till they collapse
Yes,
But also, perhaps superannuation being (at least here in NZ) not means tested and larger than all other welfare combined implies there is a problem.
“Raising and enforcing taxes on the rich” or “destroying the middle class, work them to death and make them cheer about it.”. That’s definitely a choice many countries are making right now.
and make them cheer about it
even in this very thread…
All of them, it seems like. Not all at the same speed, but still.
We’ve reached a point where my retirement plan involves suicide. It’s cheaper and I don’t want to go through all the health issues my parents are. Go to any nursing home and look at all the people so drugged up they have no idea where they are. People are just miserable and don’t even comprehend what is happening. That’s not living. That’s being kept alive by your family cause they are selfish.
That’s why you have euthanasia laws in some countries. It allows you to say goodbye with dignity while you are still sane. For example, if you get diagnosed with an aggressive and untreatable cancer, it allows you to say farewell to your loved ones before you become a husk of your former self simply waiting to die.
What spooks me is that most of the people currently living in these institutions likely would have had the exact same thoughts when they were younger.
The vast majority apparently fail to follow up. Will you? Will I?
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Simple. They want more people to die before being able to claim retirement. Dead pensioners are free.
In Iceland we have massive pension funds where people pay for their own retirement.
And then come the robots and AI, and there are no jobs anymore. Then they have a problem with too much unemployment.
Not to mention the consumer base that makes this all function collapses.
Whoever owns the most effective killbots at year 0 inherits the earth. Everyone else gets murdered or starves to death.
This is my main issue with it too. I can retire at 72 or later… in more than 40 years. I’d expect to be replaced long before this, so what’s the point?
Part of it makes sense. We live longer and longer, retirement age is something that needs to be adjusted with the human lifespan.
The problem is that our idea of what “work” should be is so awful that people look forward to retiring, and logically complain if they are denied the opportunity.
Ah, yes, the old argument of “you live longer, so the billionaires get to own more of your time”.
No. How about if I get to live longer, I get to enjoy my tiny little bit of time longer? It isn’t scarcity by nature - it’s scarcity by design.
That make sense to you?
If our Quality of life is increasing shouldn’t we be working less and for shorter periods of our lives?
You’ve seen a lot of oldies that are in working order after 60+? 70+? They are exceptions, not the norm. Longer isn’t healthier. Not on a functional level. Especially for those not in an office which is I think the majority.
We live longer and longer, retirement age is something that needs to be adjusted with the human lifespan.
Should it? We live longer and longer, but we’re also more and more productive. 50 years ago, for example, the national labor force produced enough for them and (almost) everyone else to retire after about 40 years of labor. Certainly lifespans have increased, but have they increased more than the productivity of the national labor force? I doubt it. Productivity has definitely increased enough to make up the difference in lifespans, especially since most women now work, meaning essentially double the number of workers. In that case, should we not spend the extra time (which we have earned with our own labor) with our families and friends rather than sacrifice it to some rich prick whose only contribution to society is a portfolio? There’s something distinctly dystopian about the idea that living longer means we should dedicate our time to enriching the already filthy rich rather than enjoy life.
We live longer and longer, retirement age is something that needs to be adjusted with the human lifespan.
I think it has more to do with the baby boom right after 1945. If those older people retire, there isn’t enough younger generation to support them, so more people need to work longer, so we don’t get too many retired people all at once.
I think it’s more of a “can we support the retired” kind of issue - not just “muh money”. It’s a little more nuanced than that.
… in Denmark? I mean, they’re the happiest population on Earth in general.
I’m just across the channel in southern Sweden and there’s no way I’m going to retire already in 17 years (67, which I think is the current retirement age for us)
EuroSocdem moment
