Relatively low retirement age is among key public finance problems in developed countries. Attempts to increase it are usually ineffective. Contrary to that automatically adjusting universal public pension schemes (e.g. Poland, Sweden) opens new possibilities to solve the problem. Being based on individual accounts stimulates individual rationality of participants. This enables giving up the re­tirement age as a fiscal policy tool and to exchange it by the minimum retirement age. Chronological age ceases to institutionally matter in the labour market. The minimum retirement is needed as a social policy tool.

A conceptual text focusing on the analysis of a rational structure of unemployment benefits designed to best serve the purpose of enabling the unemployed to find as quickly as possible a new job that matches their qualifications. The text concentrates on the discussion of theoretical solutions to the dual nature of unemployment benefits, namely their role in, on one hand, activisation, and on the other in income support. However, this discussion of the problem does not refer to the conditions concerning the practical administration of the benefit system (which is a separate issue), as these are generally the result of many years of overlapping various ad hoc conditions and compromises.