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The price of dignity in old age
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In a place as prosperous as Jersey has been for the past half-century or so, it would amount to a near-criminal disgrace which should not be contemplated for an instant.
Sadly, however, it remains necessary for Senator Alan Breckon to go to the States next week with a proposition designed to help retirement pensions keep better pace with soaring expenses.
The former Consumer Council chairman, who knows as well as anyone the true value of money and the problems faced by ordinary people in making it stretch to meet the ever more demoralising cost of living in Jersey, will propose a range of new formulae to ensure that States pensions do not arbitrarily fall victim to the same constraints necessary in other areas of public finance.
As another champion of the underdog in society, Age Concern’s Daphne Minihane, has pointed out in her call to States Member to back Senator Breckon, those she represents are threatened by a double-edged sword.
If, on the one hand, interest rates and general inflation remain low, not only will their savings generate no interest and dwindle away but there may also be a temptation to peg pensions in response. Meanwhile, the cost of living is increasing faster for the elderly than for society in general because their main spending is on high-priced basic essentials like food and electricity.
It will no doubt be argued in opposition to Senator Breckon that the Jersey retirement pension is already significantly better than that in the UK. It is, indeed, and rightly so. Over the decades, Jersey has been the more prosperous of the two.
Also, it is no fault of the older generation that the Island they once knew as a simple, relaxed and fairly cheap place to live has become one that is complicated, stressful and expensive, and they are owed the very best retirement the States of Jersey (whose fault it partly is) can provide for them on behalf of the community they serve.
Senator Breckon will enter the debate with a good case and a strong moral, as well as emotional, advantage, and he can expect little real opposition.
If Treasury Minister Philip Ozouf’s routine trumpeting of Jersey’s privileged financial position is not to ring somewhat hollow, a special case must be made if necessary to ensure comfort, dignity and respect in the later years of the men and women on whose industry and ingenuity that good fortune is based.
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