Monday, April 27, 2015

Self-censoring on superannuation

When applying for a job recently I was asked to write a 500 word opinion piece about using superannuation funds for home deposits. I didn’t get the job so there is no reason to waste 500 good words; I’ve published the piece at the bottom of this post.

But that’s not what this post is really about.

I am writing this post to reveal that I severely self-censored in that opinion piece. Those are not my genuine views about superannuation. Like many before me I twisted my words to fit within the Overton Window of acceptable public discourse. Maybe it was the wrong thing to do. But I did.

I want to say what I really think, even if some find it too far outside the range of acceptable conversation.

My view is this: Australia’s superannuation system will not survive another 30 years in its current form, or anything like it.

The reason for that view is that there was never an economic logic for a compulsory superannuation system in the first place.

The modern superannuation system was introduced in 1992 to relieve pressure on the age pension system by forcing all workers to save for retirement reduce wages and has since been reinterpreted as a retirement funding system. But forced saving does nothing to address the fundamental problem of a shrinking workforce - all the income streams drawn down from superannuation upon retirement rely on purchases of assets from those currently working. The net effect is exactly the same as if the working population simply gave retirees money through the tax system. Any problems with the age pension system due to demographic change also affect the superannuation system.

Furthermore, the problem of a shrinking workforce has been dramatically overblown. While the age-dependency ratio will increase when baby-boomers retire, this effect will be balanced out by relatively fewer births and a declining youth-dependency ratio. On balance, the share of the population out of the workforce under the worst-case population growth scenarios (yes, higher population growth makes the dependency ratio worse), will peak around 70% - exactly the same as the 1960s and 1970s.

To be clear about how the same demographic patterns affect the superannuation system just as they do a public pension system we must think in terms of goods and services produced in aggregate, and assets and their prices in aggregate.

In aggregate, the total goods and services produced depends on the size of the workforce and installed capital. Whether boomers retire in pensions or superannuation incomes, the rate of growth of this total production will be lower as the growth rate of the workforce decreases.

This lower rate of growth of goods and services must still be shared amongst all workers and retirees. Who gets what out of the economic pie depends on who has which rights - which claims on incomes streams in any form, either assets, public pensions, or wages. Under a public pension system workers give up some of their rights to wages by paying taxes which would go directly to the pensions of the retired. Under a private superannuation system, workers give up some of the rights to wages to buy assets, which would be sold by retirees who had previously accumulated them, in order to provide a retirement income. The net effect of both of these schemes, shown below, is identical.

Whereas with public pensions it is clear that more retirees in the population requires larger contributions by workers to support them, the superannuation system disguises this element. It does this through incremental changes to the minimum contribution requirement - from 4% of wages in 1992 to soon 12%, along with increases in the preservation age, from 55 as of this year, to 60 in 2024. This means that new contributors to the super system pay more and get less - exactly as would occur under a public pension system when increasing pension funds come from direct transfers from the workforce.

What’s more, the net effect of superannuation as a mere transfer between workers and retirees will become all too obvious when the ever-growing rate of new money pouring into the asset classes held in superannuation accounts begins to fall as the rate of superannuation drawdowns grows faster than the rate of new contributions. In the chart below the benefit payments in green will increase faster than the contributions (the red, blue and purple) as boomers begin to retire en masse.

When this occurs, the asset classes that dominate the super system, like Australian shares, will see fewer buyers and more sellers, depressing currently inflated prices and reducing the investment income of superannuation account holders. With lower account balances more funding will be needed from public pensions anyway. To be clear about this asset price effect, does anyone think the share market, or even the property market, would be at its current value without the massive inflow of funds from the compulsory super system?

Depressed incomes from super accounts will again see the need to increase contributions, or increase public pension funding, or otherwise rejig the rules to inflate asset prices at the expense of wages.

At the moment the music is still playing. But in the next 20 years there will be a generation who puts more than 12% of their wages into the super system for half their working life only to find the system requires a complete rethink. They will lose out due to their demographic destiny with the superannuation system, just as they would with a public pension system only. But the super system allows us to pretend that this is not happening by disguising transfers as investment.

This is the big issue with Australia’s superannuation system, and one that is till now outside the range of acceptable discourse. In any case, here’s my self-censored opinion piece.


Hockey’s housing ideas are anything but super

If you think home ownership is out of reach for the average family in Australia today, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

If Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey has his way, superannuation funds could be used by first-time buyers as a home deposit.

Taken at face value, Hockey’s idea reveals a deep misunderstanding about not only the role of superannuation in the welfare system but of the housing market itself.

Worse still, allowing access to super accounts will increase prices above even their current astronomical levels.

Compulsory superannuation was introduced in 1992 to anticipate and counteract the age pension tidal wave as baby boomers entered retirement.

Yet one big issue we are seeing as this demographic tidal wave approaches, is that many retirees have low superannuation savings, but very high home values, yet they are unable to tap into their home value to generate a retirement income.

The great majority of retirees prefer the stability of their own home within their local community, and are unwilling or unable to use their home as a source of income during retirement.

Directing more retirement savings into home ownership will only amplify this problem, rather than amplify retirement incomes as superannuation was designed to do.

While reforms could improve the ability for retirees to utilise their home values to generate retirement incomes, one thing that cannot change is the economics of the housing market.

Hockey’s proposal would produce a massive boost in buyer activity and turn superannuation funds into subsidised quasi-home deposit accounts, with associate tax savings advantaging the highest income earners.

Like many home buyer initiatives, such as the First Home Buyers Grant (FHBG), increasing buyer purchasing power has a clear and definite effect of increasing home prices, negating its supposed benefit and passing it directly to the home seller.

To see how this works, imagine you are at a home auction, and after great excitement and fanfare, the bidding has stopped at $500,000. The final two potential buyers are now on edge as they decide whether to tip their hats one more time.

In one scenario the second buyer stays quiet and the home is sold at that price.

But in another, the government steps in and allows the last two bidders to use their super accounts to help buy the home, or alternatively give them a FHBG. What do they do?

The extra funds allow the auction to continue as the losing bidder sees value in outbidding the previous winning price, and the previous winner is able to also outbid that new price.

This only stops when the extra buying power from the new regulations is completely absorbed into the price. If it was a $7,000 FHBG, the sale price would be $507,000.

It is clear then that Hockey’s proposal is at odds with the intention of using superannuation to provide retirement incomes, and by making the housing market more expensive, will completely contradict its intentions of facilitating home ownership and saving.


  1. Nice article. I have been looking a bit at these issues, and the discussion of the dependency ratio is pretty skewed. People look at the increasing number of elderly, but ignore what happened when there was a lot of young people.

    The belief that buying some shares in the market from someone else will somehow will cause the economy to grow is one of the stranger beliefs that has taken root in society.

  2. This is a refreshing blog. It's nice to find an economist who realizes that the economic nuts and bolts of retirement plans are just our society's excuses for providing older people who are less able to produce goods and provide services with goods and services provided by younger people who are more capable of .... It reminds me of the Lynds anthropological work in Muncie, Indiana in the 1920s and 1930s. Every society has to deal with older people, and those uncomfortable with using or lacking a convenient ice floe often opt to move such persons to a comfortable bungalow backing a golf course.

    Keep up the good thinking.

    1. Thank you. Please share any posts you like. It is hard to find an audience for ideas even a touch outside the mainstream, particularly in economics.

  3. Interesting. Not engaging with your main point here but ASX has been fairly weak since '08. perhaps the increasing size of those green bars is one part of the explanation. I hope the fund diversify out of Australian shares a bit more...

  4. Next recession? Or simply WW111?