Calls for a 21st-Century Social Safety Net for Workers Near Retirement
A 61-year-old former advice worker argues that employment initiatives must also serve people approaching pension age, not just youth.
The author, now 61, has been unemployed for over two years and has stopped applying for jobs. Drawing on his background advising on debt, housing and energy, he describes a former client in her late 50s who, due to extensions of the women’s state pension age, could no longer continue physically demanding cleaning work and struggled to find a new career compatible with her health. He points out that policy focus on youth unemployment overlooks the growing number of older workers displaced by pension reforms.
The existing social-security framework, based on the Beveridge report of 1942 and post-war Attlee reforms, has been repeatedly adjusted but now needs a comprehensive redesign. He calls for a “Beveridge for the 21st century” to create viable employment routes for those nearing retirement.
