Public sector pensions: you should be so lucky

We are often told that the average publiic sector worker's pension isn't very high. But it's an awful lot higher than many private sector workers could ever hope for.

There's a letter in the Sunday Times's Money section that sums up a good many of our problems when it comes to both public sector debt and financial inequality. It is from a public sector worker and it is about his pension. He recognises in it that he is one of the "lucky ones". But let's look at just how lucky he is.

He is "51, married, in good health, with no mortgage and no dependants". That's pretty good for starters. But he also appears to be on the edge of retirement (in his early 50s!). That means he has a choice with his final salary pension: he can either take a lump sum now and an annual pension, or just go for a higher annual pension payment.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.