Look at the government published retirement living standards and come back to me, which clearly states 44k for a comfortable retirement for 1 person and 61k for 2 people on the grand assumption that everyone has paid off their mortgage and lives outside the south east. Thats is in todays values, so whatever you do with your pension, it needs to track inflation and be able to weather stock market downturns. Therefore you need to protect from sequence of returns risk or unlike people with a final salary scheme, you run out of money and become a burden on the state in old age. For a household income for 2 people, it assumes both people have pensions, in reality most households will have one person who was the bread winner and the other who did part time work and handled the bulk of caring responsibilities, whether that be for children or caring for elderly parents. Couple that with it only becoming mandatory to offer a pension for small employers since 2018 and you might see the problem.
Now I've been kind enough to provide you a response to your question, could you extend me the same courtesy.
Im not asking for an opinion on final salary pensions in the public sector per se, what Im asking is, if you honestly believe 40k is enough in retirement, should we cap both final salary public sector pensions at £28k (40k when combined with the state pension) along with private sector ones (so around £700k in a DC pension and mandating the buying of a life annuity).
If so fair enough, thats a valid position, if not then asking if someone needs it or not is a moot point unless you are advocating an additional tax across everyone in retirement who exceeds that income.
www.bbc.co.uk