Step #1: (Re)Introducing the Retirement Income System: A New Framework Tailored to the Retiree’s Perspective

In Step 1 of this eight-part paper series, Dr. Bonnie-Jeanne MacDonald, Director of Financial Security Research for the NIA, and co-authors Doug Chandler and Alyssa Hodder, Associate Fellows for the NIA, explain why Canada needs to fundamentally rethink how the retirement income system is communicated to the public.

MacDonald argues that the conventional “three pillar” visualization — consisting of government-sponsored programs such as Old Age Security (OAS), the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) and the Canada Pension Plan/Quebec Pension Plan (CPP/QPP), along with workplace pension plans and personal savings — is a missed opportunity to help workers transition into a retirement mindset and make financial choices that will serve the next phase of their lives.

The NIA proposes that the retirement income industry and policymakers make a dramatic shift to a new framework — the NIA Retirement Income Framework — which puts retirees at the centre and reframes the retirement income system from the perspective of their financial needs.