Cost of living crisis: Pension worries underline need for UK Government to act – Scotsman comment

We are supposed to look forward to our retirement, a time to do whatever we want, rather than being at the constant beck and call of others.

However, according to a new survey, 54 per cent of people over 40 feel anxious about the day they eventually stop working.

For some, being labelled as “old” or losing their identity after their careers end was the main cause for concern.

However, predictably, financial concerns loomed large: the dawning realisation that pension pots would not provide much in the way of an income or fears that the current state of the economy would damage their investments and reduce their standard of living.

The spiralling cost of living is causing such fears to deepen. If people are struggling to pay their bills, then cutting back on pension payments – rather than attempting to increase them – may seem like the lesser of two evils.

Others, facing an even worse situation, may decide to cash in already meagre pension funds and hope that good fortune will, one day, somehow, compensate for the loss.

This is just one way in which the pain of today's economic crisis – particularly if allowed to get out of hand – could spread from the present into the future.

We are supposed to look forward to retiring (Picture: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

It underlines just how much work our elected leaders should be doing to shore up the economy and protect particularly the most vulnerable from staggering increases in energy bills.

It is a task which requires a recognition that reality is more important than dogmatic rhetoric – such as, an acknowledgement that allowing more workers from the European Union to come to the UK to help employers crying out for staff would be good for the economy despite opposition from the most ideological of Brexiteers.

So it was, possibly, good news that Liz Truss does not think a “sticking plaster” approach to the cost-of-living crisis is enough.

However, with Boris Johnson enjoying his second holiday since he was forced to announce his resignation and three weeks of his ‘zombie’ government still to go, a worried nation is crying out for our elected leaders to spell out an effective plan – as they ponder important questions about how to get through this winter and whether it’s time to mortgage their future livelihoods.