Failure to tackle age-related spending may damage credit ratings: S&P

Facing aging populations and ballooning healthcare and pension bills, governments must reform welfare systems or face a deterioration in their credit ratings, Standard & Poor's said in a report on Thursday. The ratings agency looked at 58 nations to assess the economic consequences of demographic changes and concluded that unless countries implemented reforms, more than a quarter of them could have "speculative-grade", or junk, ratings by 2050. "Over the last five to six years, many sovereig