The people who are screwed are not those affected by the shift from DB to DC. Generally speaking, DB schemes, where they existed, tended to be replaced by good DC schemes. The people who are really screwed are those that (1) never had any pension (2) only have AE minimum now. https://t.co/QCK4p428zS

— Prospect Pension (@ProspectPension) February 16, 2024

Not being a Spectator reader, let alone a subscriber, I can’t read all of James Kirkup’s article but what I can read has made the hair on the back of my neck rise as it did the manager of the Prospect Pension’s twitter feed.

It is a whinge at Government for allowing my generation an advantage over his generation.

That’s as much as I can read for free but I’ve got the gist.  Prospect are absolutely right, the spend on retirement is now on “almost” everyone who is employed and to a lesser degree self-employed. Necessarily it’s spread thin and unless you work permanently in the public sector , you aren’t going to get too close to the two thirds of final salary nirvana that was promised the boomer with the intellectual and social advantages to qualify to be in a DB scheme – yesteryear.

But it is a stretch to say that those in their forties in the UK are getting screwed. Any high earner  who chooses to save hard into pensions still gets huge tax reliefs on up to £60,000 a year of pensions. The LifeTime Allowance has gone and as well as tax-relief , people like James can make use of salary sacrifice to boost their pension still further. Employers may not be contributing to meet a final salary based pension expectation but reward comes in other ways and James is entitled to a full state pension without means-testing.

In short, he has to accept that his handsome salary comes with a greater onus on him to make his own way home. That does not leave him abandoned.

Having started work in London in the early eighties, I don’t remember feeling any richer than my son does. I paid a mortgage , he pays rent, wealth will pass down to him over time and he’s getting on – as most young people do – without moaning.

If James Kirkup wants to establish an equivalent to what his forebears had, he should encourage whoever replaces the Barclay Brothers as owners of the Spectator to set up a CDC scheme for him and his employers , funded out of his total reward package and designed to pay – under best endeavours – an equivalent pension to what previous generations of journalists got.

I’d be happy to introduce him to the actuaries and lawyers who set these plans up.

But to expect that we will become a nation that universally provides gold-plated pensions for everyone is to ignore the reality of the past. Those who are sitting on big DB pensions are indeed lucky , lucky not to have nothing at all – or a shonky stakeholder pension or a few fractured pots that can’t be displayed on a pension dashboard. Millions are in retirement or arriving at retirement today with little more than the state pension promise.

They are truly screwed, even more screwed than James who is (or should be) in a decent DC scheme set up by his employer.

James now has 20 years (maybe more) to get his act together and get ready for retirement. If he wants to pack it in at 55, he is going to have a lottery win, an inheritance or a very big salary. He should stop whingeing and get on with living the second half of his career with an eye to the future, recognising that the vast majority of people who don’t read the Spectator are playing tiny violins.