Adrian Boulding: pensioners in post-austerity Britain

We’ve been here before.

Our national debt has risen in a manner unprecedented since the second world war – which set me thinking that there may be parallels we can learn from the 1950s and 1960s as to how we paid it off then.

Much of the war debt came from America. In the 1930s we had grown lazy in feeding ourselves and imported two-thirds of what we ate, much of it from the US, the breadbasket of the world. And then in the 1940s we took weapons and munitions from America, an essential contribution to victory.

Getting back in the black

This time round we owe the money to the emerging economies like China, India and Brazil. They produced the goods our consumers wanted to buy at low prices, and lent us the money to buy them. Ignoring the government’s holding of gilts, 35 per cent of our national debt is owed to foreign countries like this.

So how did we get back into the black last time round? We made things that our creditors wanted, and exported them. Like Jaguar cars, who sent the vast majority of their production in the 1950s to America. 

Pensioners have a role to play

We’ll have to do much the same this time round, and I can see two ways that pensioners can help.

Those retiring with only a small pension will have to take low-paid part-time work. They might be packing up the goods that factories have made ready for export. Or they might be in call centres, effectively reimporting jobs back form India.

Instead of call centres talking to us in foreign accents we’ll have to get used to call centres that are hard of hearing and have to be shouted at!

Better-off retirees will need to contribute too, but more likely in jobs where their years of experience can be drawn on efficiently. Not necessarily working for the money but more as a public service.

Many such pensioners will be able to make a part-time managerial, technical or creative contribution to British businesses, helping our nation’s firms to create what our creditors want and pay down the national debt.

Pensioners will play an important part in our economic recovery. For some, it will be because their finances require it. For others, it will be a case of 'Your country needs you'.

Adrian Boulding is pensions strategy director at Legal & General