FT readers were far more succinct in their online comments: “It’s a Ponzi scheme!” said one, summing up the views of many.
The state pension is not a contributory system.
It rests on an implicit social contract: tax and NI deducted from workers’ payslips today is what’s funding the state pension payments made to older generations.
As the population ages, funding the state pension in its current form will become even more expensive.
To temper this, policymakers could keep increasing the state pension age (a decision on this has been conveniently delayed until after the election) or eventually be forced to take a much more radical approach, such as means testing.
Either move would be politically explosive — but the future sustainability of the state pension is not a debate we can defer forever.
It will be impossible to make changes that are “fair” to everybody, but the uncertainty over future policy is making it much harder for individuals to plan their retirement strategy.
People on lower incomes often rely solely on the state pension to fund their retirement, but face having to wait longer to get it.
Manual workers will be (for want of a better phrase) too knackered to keep working into their eighth decade.
And then you have generational fairness.
Pensioner benefits have been protected in a way that working age benefits have not.
Is it right that a greater share of taxpayer cash goes towards funding healthcare and state pensions for boomers with assets such as property and private pensions that younger workers can only dream of possessing?
Cost of living pressures mean growing numbers of people are opting out of workplace pension saving.
I’m in the lucky position of being able to afford to invest more into my private pension if the state pension age rises, or some form of means testing reduces what I might receive.
But I’d have to save a lot more to replace it entirely.
Try and buy an index-linked annuity paying the equivalent of £220 per week for life, and it would cost you something like £225,000 today.
The thought of that could frighten some people into saving more — but a lack of trust in the system is a huge disincentive against pension saving altogether.
This adds to the (not inconsiderable) uncertainties facing those saving for retirement.
Generations who have missed out on the security of final salary pension schemes already face the challenge of managing a finite pot of investments into their old age — most without help from an adviser.
We are having to manage investment risk in a way that older generations have not.