Few people start planning for their retirement until they are 64 years old. If you go on the Statistics Canada website you will see some interesting percentages but this writer cannot get them to jive. For instance, there are claims that 18,000+ males over the age of 110 contributed to the Canada Pension Plan. What? Are there even 18,000 males alive at age 110 in Canada? I find that incredibly hard to believe.
According to another one of their statistics 40% of Canadians have some kind of defined contribution or registered contribution pension plan. That would be over and above your Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security pension. We believe this to be high. It would not take into account the Canadians who have ‘fallen through the cracks’ of our various systems. From our own rough survey we have ascertained that of the companies that offer defined contribution pension plans 10% of employees opt out of them. This in itself is a startling statistic. Regardless of the accuracy of these statistics the fact remains that at least 60% of Canadians will rely only on the Canada Pension Plan and the Old Age Security for their retirement income.
60% of Canadians, at age 65, will be living under the poverty line. The average combined income is approximately $11,000 and the maximum a little over $19,000 per year. Compare that with the average combined pensions of a government appointee of $37,000. These government officials are the ones who had so much difficulty begrudging us an additional $600 per year increase in our pension!
Simply put, there are too many people falling off the grid while our elected officials are ensuring that we stay there though they are wallowing in milk and honey, at our expense.
No comments:
Post a Comment