HelpAge International welcomes a new working paper by the World Bank that endorses universal minimum pensions as an effective and administratively simple way to substantially reduce poverty among the older generation. Over 340 million older people lack income security today and if nothing is done this will rise to 1.5 billion people by 2050.

Bernd Schubert (Comment 27 October 2009) is remarkably sanguine about the problem of leapfrogging. The general assertion that “There is disappointment among those households that did not get in because of the 10 percent cut-off point and there is some envy. But there is no evidence of serious problems” is as far as we know contrary to the general experience of welfare schemes, where it has been found that people accept poverty targeting as long as the targeting is accurate and the amounts given are such that they do not allow recipients to leapfrog poor non-recipients.