Labour, House of Commons: 37 Million to Be Affected by UK Pension Age Increase

Almost 37 million people will be affected once the UK increases its state pension age, according to data from the House of Commons Library and an analysis from Labour.

Of the 36.9 million pensioners, 56,547 are from Prime Minister Theresa May’s Maidenhead constituency, while 59,290 reside in Work and Pension secretary David Gauke’s South West Hertfordshire constituency, according to the Labour analysis.

The data from the House of Commons Library found that another 61,753 under the age of 47 are in Chancellor Phillip Hammond’s constituency of Runnymede and Weybridge.

The current plans will level the state pension age for men and women to 65 at the end of 2018. They will then rise to 66 in 2020, 67 in 2028, and will then cap off at age 68 sometime between 2037 and 2039. This will force those born between 1970 and 1978 to wait an extra year before they can receive their retirement benefits.

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“Thanks to the Tories increasing the state pension age, 36.9m people will be forced to work longer, at the same time that evidence indicates life expectancy has stalled in some places and is reducing in others,” Labour’s shadow work and pensions secretary, Debbie Abrahams, said in an interview with the Independent. “Theresa May should answer her 56,547 constituents, and the 36.9m people across Britain, whose hard-earned retirements are being postponed because of her Government.”

Tags: House of Commons Library, Labour, Pension, UK Pensions

The $4.7 billion City of Philadelphia Employees Retirement System saw stocks and equities help produce a 12.9% return for the year ended June 30, 2017, more than a point higher than the 11.5% benchmark.

Driven by gains from various Russell and MSCI indices, US equities, non-US developed equities, and non-US equity emerging markets were the top drivers of the fund’s fiscal year performance, achieving 19.6%, 20%, and 22.4% returns for the period, respectively. Three-year returns were 7.8%, 0.4%, and 1.4%, respectively. Five-year returns were 13.7%, 7.3%, and 2.6%, respectively. Only 10-year returns for the US and Non-US developed equity markets were available at 7% and 1%, respectively, as emerging markets have only been in inception since January 2009—and have provided 9.7% returns since then.

Absolute returns, which includes hedge funds, returned 13.5% in the fiscal year. For the three-, five-, and 10-year period, the class returned 1.1%, 4%, and 1.8%, respectively.

Real assets returned 5.7%, beating their 1.6% benchmark for the fiscal year, also steamrolling its -5.7% three-year benchmark at 0.2%. Public real estate reported 0.5% while private real estate reported 7.7% returns—on par with its fiscal benchmark, but under par from its three- and five-year benchmarks. Open-ended real estate has returned 2.2% since its January inception.

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MLPs produced an 1.8% gain, returning -10% for the three-year period and 5.2% in the five-year period.

The only negative fiscal returns came from private energy/infrastructure at -1.9%. They were -10.5% in the three-year period, and 1.6% for the five-year period.

Rounding out the report was private assets, which returned 5.8% for the period ending June 30, 2017.

Tags: City of Philadelphia Employees Retirement System, Fiscal Year, Pension, Philadelphia

Philadelphia Pension Returns 12.9% in FY 2017