LONDON, Oct. 11 (UPI) -- Britain's aging workforce will be offered an incentive to keep working beyond retirement age, the Telegraph reported Monday.
The Pensions Commission intends to ask workers this week to delay their retirement to stave off a looming crisis in the pensions system. If they agree, they will get a check, payable when they finally begin their retirement.
The commission is studying three kinds of responses to an expected shortfall in pension funds: raising taxes to pay for better state pensions; encouraging people to save much more than they do now; or urging workers to postpone their retirement.
The panel won't make any firm recommendations until it produces a follow-up report toward the end of 2005, but meanwhile it expects to offer the cash payments as a stop-gap measure.
A man with an average state pension entitlement would receive $9,000 for deferring for one year, $20,000 for two years or $54,000 for five years.
A married couple who both deferred retirement for five years would receive $86,000 under the system.
