Pensions

The financial crisis has demonstrated weaknesses in many pension schemes. Changes need to place women at the heart of the pension debate argues Liam Foster.

Politicians must ‘grasp the nettle’ of tax reform, according to a think-tank report. The existing system of redistribution through tax and benefits is inefficient, and needs to be replaced by one that provides ‘redistribution at lower cost’.

The report draws on findings from the Mirrlees review (2011) and the Commission on Living Standards (2011). It sets out structural reforms designed to improve support for households on low-to-middle incomes. Simply making the existing system more generous to this group will not be sustainable in the long run, it argues.

More than half of children living in poverty have a parent in paid employment, finds the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in their report, Monitoring Poverty and Social Exclusion 2011.

The report, produced with the New Policy Institute, warns that ‘the coalition does not have a comprehensive anti-poverty strategy and relies too much on the tax and benefits system alone to encourage people into work, mistakes also made by Labour’. It is also highly critical of the lack of a plan to address problems associated with the rise of badly paid and insecure jobs – more than half of all children in poverty are living with a parent in paid work. It says that: