What the French people could really use, is a nice reduction in the pension age. Maybe drop it down to 55 to reduce the stress.
Here come the downvotes but whatever. This is a problem in the entire 1st world so my position in Canada is just as applicable.
I’m 49. My dad is 82 and just stopped working.
It is a fact that people are living longer and able to work longer. It is also a fact that people, on average, do not plan for retirement that is why we have social assistance. It is also a fact that government social assistance is supposed to be a stop gap not a replacement for individual responsibility. For the government to be fully responsible your taxes would need to increase drastically.
In Canada one of the best things that was done recently was to raise the amount every Canadian pays into the CPP. This did not improve it however, this just made it less likely to run out of money in the future. This is why they also are providing incentives to delay receiving your CPP and why globally there is a push to raise the pension age.
So there are multiple problems
- We do not fund the system well enough to account for the amount of pensioners increasing that funding is political suicide.
- People are living longer and we have the largest fucking generation ever needing to be propped up by one of the smallest who I might add are also raising kids at the same time.
- People are working longer depressing the market for high value and low value jobs (think executives and Walmart greeters)
- People do not plan for retirement
In none of these scenarios does lowering the pension age make it easier.
On a base level I agree with what you said. It’s bullshit my dad has to work until 82. But Jesus Christ reality people. It’s not feasible!
As a end fyi. My parents are lower middle class and we’re good with money but then in the 90s we had a recession and my dad lost his job to computers and ther went their savings. This is not a unique story. People can be responsible and shit happens. As it stands now they barely make by on only government pensions because they live in the middle of nowhere and they rent for well below market value because the person who owns their house is a genuinely nice person. Survival shouldn’t rely on luck.
and what did your dad have to say about retiring?
and feelings of retiring before and after ?
Depending on how the person likes their job or what they get from it can add to why a person lives so long and healthier to be able to. they find their reason to get up in the morning. https://www.cnbc.com/make-it/2024/07/20/100-year-olds-not-retiring-is-what-keeps-us-going.html
never underestimate the rate of depression in elderly when they dont feel useful anymore
there has been studies on people who live to 100 and one of the factors is they found an excuse be it their hobby or a job that was equal to their hobby giving them something to look forward to doing every day was actually beneficial for their overall health to stay more cognisant as they grow older.
Not all work stress is bad stress. bad stress such as having abusive people around is not the same as a mental challenge stress that keeps a person’s brain working.
we are in these bodies to move them.
so i dont think its just people are living longer, they are feeling more relevant to live better for longer.
Which further gets to pension age being low is bullshit as it is lol. It’s meant as a general guideline it’s why I don’t plan on taking my pension until I’m 70. Means I can. Get more money by delaying. Unfortunately not all people can do that though.
Regardless, the point is demanding a pension age of 55 is insane as is expecting the pension age to stay at 65. The average person born in 2000 is expected to live about 80 years which means most people will live well beyond that. The system is not designed to support someone for 25+ years because when it was designed we did not live that long!
Which gets to the underlying problem. UBI. We keep addressing all these fractured issues when they would all be solved with a fucking UBI but God forbid politicians ask corporations and millionaires/billionaires to pay for it.
We can’t even get our politicians to fund education and healthcare properly.
We are cooked chat.
I wonder what their proposal for improving things is. The whole Europe is kind of suffering from things tracing back to Ukraine and Iran wars.
It’s more or less the same story every time: tax the wealthy, stop wasting ever more money on subsidies to large companies, stop attacking social security nets, spend money on public services (education, justice, health, etc), etc
It’s also a show of support for the highschool and student protests, and against far-right sentiments
Well, there’s always a trade-off, and rarely a free lunch.
Reducing subsidies from large companies makes them less competitive against foreign companies, although I’m sure you can find at least some subsidies to cut.
Putting money to social services is often financed with debt, as the amounts needed cannot certainly be taken from corporate subsidies. The problem is, France is already deep in debt and the rates are high. Having France default would really hurt everyone in the EU and could cause a domino effect. I know this is not something Lemmy wants to hear, but maybe you need to.
against far-right sentiments
I hope they also show this in the presidential election. A fascist France would also be a terrible outcome for Europe.
Huh… You weirdly left out one of their suggestions completely. I wonder why. Literally their first suggestion, in the very first sentence of their comment, too.
Just a coincidence I’m sure.
Actually I just missed it, no need to wonder any longer. Yes, taxing the wealthy is a good idea. However, France already has a pretty high tax rate, so there’s a limit how far that can go and how much can be funded with it.
The percentage is the limit. that is not a number limit. it is essentially a structure to protect this exact damage to an economy we are feeling as a result of the the rich being unchecked and unhinged for far too long. there is only so far you can float an economy on so little until it collapses.
And…you missed it?
How??
it was their answer to you asking “i wonder what their answer is”
stop bringing down the comment curve. it is super trolly.
The percentage is the limit. that is not a number limit.
I don’t understand what this means. In fact, the whole paragraph makes little sense to me. But it sounds very confident.
And…you missed it? How??
Dude, I’m old and doing many things at once. Probably focused more on their social programs part. However, in the big picture it doesn’t change the fact that you can only increase taxes to a certain point. If that’s not enough, there’s not many places to look for left.
it was their answer to you asking “i wonder what their answer is”
Yes, and it was a decent answer. I would like to see some numbers how it would work. Being angry is easy, being careful about a country’s economy is not. And I’m in no way against the protests, I believe they have a good reason to do so. I’m just curious about the end game here.
stop bringing down the comment curve. it is super trolly.
What’s a comment curve now?
yo we all busy doing a lot of things. And you’re not my job here. many other posts I’d rather be in than this one so dont talk like youre entitled to my time here.
Gotta rework how taxes are calculated. The mega rich just take out loans so they never have to pay capital gain tax. That loopholes gotta be closed
Yes. I don’t know how many billionaires France has, but it’s in any case too many. They should be taxed heavily.
However, social programs are really really expensive. It would be interesting to see where the tax rates should be set in order to cover a meaningful increase in social spending.
And an other problem is that they won’t think of showing the exemple.
All the effort for us, while they won’t consider cutting off one cent to thier own salaries or advantages.
I don’t know the French political scene enough to comment on this, but yes, sounds like politicians everywhere.
But even then there’s a problem. Imagine a politician cuts half their salary. If that story doesn’t make it to news, or people forget about it after 2 weeks, they lost half their salary for absolutely no gain. Leading by example can be difficult, if you don’t have the attention of the people.
But higher wages will increase the cost of living as employers raise prices to pay to for the higher wages.
This excuse always baffled me. You know they don’t HAVE to raise their prices, right? They could simply eat the cost and still be rolling in obscene amounts money. Let’s stop making excuses for corporate greed.
So, conversely, lower wages would make prices cheaper? By that token, I suppose you would be happy to have everyone’s salaries cut in, say, half?
