Growing older in Australia is becoming fraught with financial risk

The Guardian, 4 May 2018:

Half of the 51,300 older Australians affected by an increase in the age pension age would move on to Newstart or the disability support pension in the first year alone, new figures suggest.

The Coalition has long proposed increasing the age pension age from 67 to 70, kicking in from 2025-26. The change is likely to make Australia’s pension age the highest in the developed world.

Government estimates show the move would affect 51,300 people in the first year alone, according to a response to questions asked in Senate estimates.

The government also predicts 12,934 people would move from the age pension to the disability support pension and 12,825 to the Newstart Allowance unemployment payment.

The changes have not yet been legislated, but the pension changes remain Coalition policy after being first proposed in 2014.

They would follow Labor’s increase of the pension age from 65 to 67 when it was last in government – a change that is being gradually implemented from July 2017 until July 2023.

The opposition has pledged to fight any further increase to the pension age.

The shadow social services minister, Jenny Macklin, said the data showed increasing the pension age would not necessarily keep older Australians in work, as the government intends.

 “Many Australians won’t be able to work for longer like Mr Turnbull wants them to. Instead they’ll just be forced to live on Newstart or the DSP,” Macklin said.

“Labor understands how hard it is for older Australians to find work, particularly when their job has taken a toll on their body and where there is age-based discrimination in the workforce.”