Japan considering raising pension age to 70

[mooncliff]

So far, the average Japanese is not seriously impaired until about age 75. They should have started increasing the retirement age a long time ago.


Ministry eyes 70 as pension eligibility age


By JUN HONGO
Staff writer
While the need to address the ballooning costs of social security is universally recognized, experts were divided Wednesday over whether the welfare ministry is on the right track with its proposal to raise the age at which employees start receiving their pensions.
On Tuesday, the welfare ministry proposed that workers enrolled in the employee pension program begin receiving benefits as late as ages 68 to 70 instead of the current 60.


http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-b...0111013a1.html

[Ibsen]

Re: Japan considering raising pension age to 70

Not surprising.
I've been expecting this for years ... I suppose I'll never get there (despite my stack of gold )
In Australia there is no mandatory retirement age but most people are retired by 65, remains to be seen what will happen once the housing bubble crashes and the economy takes a downturn
In most other countries, it sems to me that few people work all they way to mandatory retirement age. Most leave the work force a few years early

[mooncliff]

Re: Japan considering raising pension age to 70

Yep, a lot of my relatives retired at 60 or even 55, then had nearly 30 years of retirement. The problem is that everyone started to think that was normal. Hawaii has a state pension deficit of 7 billion and a state health care deficit of 5 billion, and the total state budget is 10 billion. And if the cheap oil goes, there will be no growth and therefore no return on investment.

This is why my goal is to get my house to zero cost. I am almost there. Total for everything, taxes, insurance, water, maintenance is about $3,000 a year. Am going to put up photovoltaics and get a feed in tariff. That will provide about $3,000 per year, so the house will become essentially zero cost until I go... hahaha... some monkey wrench will come flying to ruin it.

Learning how to order stuff online and huge deflation in the costs of goods has gotten expenses down unbelievably. In Japan, the cost of food has been essentially unchanged for 20 years. But now we have Costco and Walmart. Rents have gone down even in Tokyo, sometimes by more than half. I would say I am now spending less than half what I did 15 years ago for the same thing. Amazon Japan has been charging about double what Amazon US has been, so I have been showing friends how to order from Amazon US. It is difficult for them because everything is in English, but once they do it the first time, they keep doing it.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Japan considering raising pension age to 70

Learning how to order stuff online and huge deflation in the costs of goods has gotten expenses down unbelievably. In Japan, the cost of food has been essentially unchanged for 20 years. But now we have Costco and Walmart. Rents have gone down even in Tokyo, sometimes by more than half. I would say I am now spending less than half what I did 15 years ago for the same thing. Amazon Japan has been charging about double what Amazon US has been, so I have been showing friends how to order from Amazon US. It is difficult for them because everything is in English, but once they do it the first time, they keep doing it.

Why is Amazon US cheaper? Is it because it avoids Japan's consumption tax?

[mooncliff]

Re: Japan considering raising pension age to 70

Hmm, no, the consumption tax is only 5%. I think it is just because they can get away with it... free shipping in more or less one day anywhere in Japan, and sometimes you get annoying glitches when try to use US Amazon and you use a Japanese credit card, and they have to navigate the site entirely in English, which is not something most Japanese are comfortable with. How many people in the US would order from Amazon Japan, even if it were cheaper, if they had to do it in Japanese, Google translate notwithstanding?

[c1ue]

Re: Japan considering raising pension age to 70

This is interesting, but perhaps not relevant given the huge systemic fraud in relatives collecting for dead people.

I for one am very curious to see how the discovery of 230,000 missing pensioners impacts Japan's life expectancy statistics:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11258071

If I assume every single one of these is exactly 100 years old and if all 230,000 are actually dead then that would reduce overall life expectancy in Japan by 0.04 years just by itself.

If there are corresponding numbers that are <100 years of age, the effect would be much larger.

[shiny!]

Re: Japan considering raising pension age to 70

What effect will raising the retirement age have on young people trying to enter the work force?