French Strike Aims to Save an Envied, but Convoluted, Approach to Pensions
This article is misleading (full disclosure, I am French and did protest against this last Thursday)<p>This article talk mainly about &quot;special pensions&quot; from the public with privilege... For sure they will be the biggest losers and they are very vocal, but the law and the protest is about much more than that...<p>This reform will impact everybody, people will have to work longer, possibly to get a lower pension. Women are particularly exposed here.<p>Points system allows to more easily lower the value of the point... This has been done in Sweden, and former French Minister Filon told that is one main reason he likes the point system...<p>With this new reform, life expectancy are not taken into consideration : a manager will live longer than an industrial worker on average ; with the same share of contribution he will benefits from the system longer than &quot;poor people&quot; in general<p>People working longer means... a little bit more unemployment and more health expense for the workers (and more absenteeism for companies) as older worker have more health problem. So you save some money for retirement at the expense of other public spending...<p>Some economists, like Thomas Piketty are very vocal against this &quot;law&quot;...<p>It is a pity the NYT did such a poor job...