CPP and OAS Pensions

I have a very well read and very intelligent grandson who must not know that the pensions that seniors receive are those we or our spouses have paid into all of our lives.

I posted a photo on Facebook jokingly saying that we all are owed nothing in life and he responded commenting on my CPP payments.  I told him then that Canada Pension Plan is funded out of every paycheck.  OAS (Old Age Security) is funded by our income tax.

Every once in a while a millennial will disparagingly speak about the government pensions that seniors receive and I always wondered why.  Now I know.  Most don't even know that these pensions are funded by our years of working.  My husband contributed to both funds for 46 years but only collected for 6 1/2 years before he passed away.  I worked part-time for many years and contributed then so I'm now benefiting from my husband's years of labor.

My daughter replied that the people still working and paying into these funds are worried there won't be any money in them when they reach retirement age.  Unfortunately, that is a reasonable worry but the fault doesn't lie with the seniors collecting today.  It lies with the government agencies who were somehow legally allowed to draw money from those funds for purposes other than pensions and that is what is depleting them.

The sadder side of this is that, unless a senior has an additional pension source, CPP and AOS will leave them living in poverty.  When Dennis retired early from the fire department and went to work for his brother where there was no pension plan, we saved and invested the maximum allowed every year into an RRSP (Registered Retirement Income Fund).  If it wasn't for that we could never have afforded going to Florida for the winter and buying cars and car insurance.  Young people often fail to understand this.

Seniors should not have to keep explaining to the younger generation that our pensions are not "free money".  Every penny was earned!