2020-21 retirees experiencing poverty

Recent research from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) challenges the idea that those who've left the workforce have done so because they're well off.

by | 11 Jul, 2023

senior couple looking at digital tablet

“As many as 48% of 50- to 70-year-olds who left their jobs in 2020-21 had since experienced relative poverty,” The Guardian reports. “Relative poverty is defined as living in households with income below 60% of the median.”

With the UK lagging behind other nations in employment recovery post-COVID, and the IFS reporting that a smaller proportion of those who retired in 2020-21 than in previous years had access to state or private pensions. 

The Guardian includes comment from IFS senior research economist Xiaowei Xu, labelling government policies such as the ‘mid-life MOT’ critical to supporting older workers to rejoin the labour market.  

Read the full story at The Guardian.

Share This