SUPERANNUATION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 April 1938, Page 10

SUPERANNUATION

FURTHER STATMENT AIADE BY BRITISH ACTUARY PROBABLE PROPORTION OF PENSIONERS. INTERPRETATION CORRECTED. (By Telegraph —Press Association.) WELLINGTON, April 28. In a statement submitted to the Parliamentary Committee on superannuation and national health, Mr G. .H. Maddex (British Government Actuary) said the figures he submitted in his report on April 12 relating to the ratio of the number of pensioners to the number of workers had been misinterpreted to mean that in ten years' time every hundred workers would have to support 46 old age pensioners.” “If the calculation is carried a little further, and on the one hand only the numbers drawing superannuation allowances over the age of sixty are taken into account, and on the other hand men and women following gainful occupation from sixteen upwards are counted as workers (including such persons over sixty) a rather different picture is presented,” Mr. Maddex stated. “I estimate that in 1939, for every hundred men and women who follow a gainful occupation, there will be twelve men and women drawing superannuation allowances, and that in 1949, for every hundred workers on this definition, there will be eighteen persons drawing superannuation. Thus, in ten years’ time the ratio of pensioners to men and women workers will be approximately fifty per cent greater than at present (that is eighteen per hundred compared vzith twelve per hundred). It should be noted that the number of pensioners taken into account does not include persons drawing various existing State benefits and pensions, which would of course substantially increase the proportion of State beneficiaries to workers.”

Mr Maddex also submitted statistical information relating to the occupational grading of men under and over sixty respectively, and relating to the estimated number of beneficiaries in the Government’s superannuation proposals. The last-mentioned return estimated that the number of recipients of superannuation benefits would rise from 59,100 at February this year to 80,000 in 1939-40 and 128,000 in 1949-50.