age pension, USA News: Rising living costs and healthcare expenses are putting increasing pressure on older Australians, leaving many unable to enjoy the retirement they planned. Retirement cost figures show the age pension falls well short of what is needed for a comfortable lifestyle, particularly for renters. Retirees are now calling for greater support to ensure older Australians can live with dignity.
While many retired Australians have paid off their homes, possess good superannuation balances, and see their savings boosted by higher interest rates, others face significant hurdles. The pandemic, interest rate rises, the Iran war, housing shortages, and health concerns mean some are not living the laid-back life they anticipated. At a certain age, it is often impossible to work or earn one’s way out of a financial bind.
For Katharine Morris and her husband, retirement has been stressful and demoralizing. They live in a 25-year-old caravan usually parked outside their son’s rental in outer Sydney. After years working on a family farm, a lack of succession planning left them with no super, no savings, and no employment prospects. A subsequent tourism business was devastated by the global financial crisis, and health issues forced them to give up fly-in, fly-out jobs, preventing them from paying off their home or investment property in Western Australia.
Today, the couple worries about climbing health costs, particularly specialist appointments, and petrol prices that often force them to stay put until their next age pension payment arrives. Ms. Morris’s message to the federal government is simple: raise the age pension to something decent to help them do more than just survive.
Moving Overseas for Affordability
Robert Donnelly moved to Batam, an Indonesian island a short ferry trip from Singapore, three years ago after his age pension and income from driving a taxi two days a week no longer covered rising living costs on the Gold Coast. Unwilling to pay increased asking rates and live in poverty, he found a comfortable life abroad paying $180 per week in rent, with affordable electricity, security, and groceries.
However, Indonesia is not home, and Mr. Donnelly expressed an earnest desire to return to Australia as soon as possible, having contributed to the Australian workforce for over 58 years. He would like to see greater investment in social housing, reduced overseas migration, and politicians engaging more with everyday people.
Superannuation and Industry Response
Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) chief executive Mary Delahunty noted that a comfortable retirement is not a luxury lifestyle, noting it includes top-cover health insurance, a reasonable car, meals out most weeks, a yearly domestic holiday, and an overseas trip roughly every seven years. Superannuation is essential to providing a lifestyle beyond the pension alone. However, for Australians on the age pension, the income gap for a comfortable lifestyle is tens of thousands of dollars.
While pensions and rent assistance increase twice a year to keep pace with living costs, retirees like Ms. Morris and Mr. Donnelly argue it has not been enough. A spokesperson for Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek stated that the full rate for a single pensioner has increased by more than $6,500 a year since Labor came into government, alongside rent assistance increases up to $2,000 a year and other cost-of-living measures such as cheaper medicines and increased bulk-billing.
