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A lot of Australians are hoping there might be an interest rate cut at the next Reserve Bank board meeting but they shouldn’t hold their breath.
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If you are aged 70 with a million dollar home you could get up to $308,000 per year from a little-known scheme with risks.
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The coronavirus stock market crash is more jumpy, and harder to rein in, in part because of the role of retirees.
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The government’s retirement incomes review should concentrate on boosting rent assistance and Newstart and fixing the pension assets test. These would achieve more than boosting super.
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More older Australians are carrying housing debt later in life, or not owning homes at all, but lack suitable alternatives to the family home. The result is lower incomes in retirement.
People come in different shapes and sizes, which can make a one-size-fits-all retirement scheme uncomfortable.
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No single super contribution rate suits everyone, and there’s only a clear case for an increase if there’s no age pension.
Under the Institute of Actuaries proposal, only retirees with more valuable than normal homes would face an assets test, and only on that part of the value that was higher than normal.
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Retires who don’t own their homes do awfully out of the pension. Here’s a way to rebalance it.
We’re taking money from people, letting it fall through the cracks, and spending no less than we were on pensions.
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The inquiry will find we force workers to sacrifice income, pay tens of billions in super tax concessions, and still pay out one in every ten dollars of government earnings on pensions.
Superannuation has a smaller role in the retirement incomes system than is often suggested.
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One of the questions is how much we need in retirement. Another is whether we need 12% compulsory super to get there.
“We’d be mad not to learn the lessons” of the election result, said Chalmers on Labor’s way ahead.
Joel Carrett/AAP
Jim Chalmers on the need to change economic course
The Conversation , CC BY 35,9 MB (download)
In this podcast, Shadow Treasurer Jim Chalmers argues the government can have both a more stimulatory policy and a surplus going forward.
Despite a slowing economy, Josh Frydenberg says ‘you wouldn’t want to be in any other economy, other than Australia’.
James Ross/AAP
Politics with Michelle Grattan: Treasurer Josh Frydenberg on a slowing economy
This week's June quarter national accounts showed the weakest economic growth since the GFC, but Treasurer Josh Frydenberg remains optimistic.
Increasing numbers of older Australians face a harder time paying the bills when they retire because they’ll still be paying off a mortgage or renting a home.
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People over 65 who still have a mortgage or are renting are projected to double in number by 2031. The trend is likely to hit government budgets and leave more retirees in poverty.
Having more money now means less money, and more dependence, later.
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Making super voluntary for low earners, as proposed by a Liberal senator would leave more women vulnerable in old age.
The problem is that extra savings cut the pension, it isn’t the idea of extra savings.
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There is a case for not proceeding with, or at least deferring, the legislated increase in employers’ compulsory super contributions, but it isn’t the one the Grattan Institute makes.
“Churning” out of and back in to home ownership is becoming common. We haven’t caught up.
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Whether you owned a home or not used to be straightforward. The boundaries are becoming permeable.
Not cutting deeming rates when other rates are falling keeps people off the pension.
Often misunderstood, deeming rates are back broadly where they should be.
Deeming rates began as a way to stop people cheating in order to obtain the pension.
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It’s a good idea to deem income, but of late we’ve doing it badly.
Open and shut. Most Australians would be worse off over their lifetimes if compulsory super contributions were lifted.
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New calculations suggest middle earners will earn less over their lives if compulsory super is ramped up from 9.5% of salary to 12% as scheduled.
Compulsory super takes money out of the government’s coffers faster than savings on the pension put it back in.
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It is widely believed that compulsory super saves the government money on pensions. It does, but nowhere near enough to pay for the accompanying tax concessions. Lifting compulsory contributions will make things worse, for a century.
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Employees and their pensions will increasingly be at the mercy of financial markets thanks to a coalition of culprits.