[Closed] Raise in state pension age

I want the choice to a dignified death. I'm all for voluntary euthanasia, we as humans should accept once quality of life is diminished, we should have the choice to die.

No surprises here - well flagged years in advance

Public sector pensions are essentially an unsustainable Ponzi scheme

=> The state pension is unfit for purpose

People have been given the wrong advice for too long, Rely on the state and you are screwed in old age.

If only there was another DUP magic money tree.

£1bn vs £74bn

We don't save enough / pay enough National Insurance for the pensions it seems we want. Either pay more or get less. As teamhurtmore says.

@Kryton they have much more generous pensions in France which are related to your income during your working life, their taxes are much much higher.

My mother in law has been whinging about the Tories... yet she voted for them.

I just don't get it.

Apparently the plan is to bring it inline with Sudan model:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retirement_age

I want the choice to a dignified death. I'm all for voluntary euthanasia, we as humans should accept once quality of life is diminished, we should have the choice to die.

I'm like some kind of visionary.... I started planning for this eventuality in my teens. ramped it up in my twenties and thirties, and reached a stage of permanent kebab-laden shiraz-pickledness in my 40's.

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pissing myself in some grim subsistence level hell of a 'retirement' isn't an option my poor abused body is ever likely to deliver. On reflection.... I win! 😀

Actually... I'll probably be that genetic freak who smoked 40 woodbines a day, and necked 12 pints on the way back from work every evening, yet lived to 107. Bah! 😥

My mother in law has been whinging about the Tories... yet she voted for them.

You just wait till the full impact of Brexit hits home.

The gilded generation who voted for it will be wailing from their triple-locked, index-linked, inflation+ ivory towers like low flying Hercules

Glad you lot all listened properly to what's been said today. Nothing has changed, the Tories have expressed an aspiration to change the retirement age but don't plan to do it until 2023 when the next pension age review is due. To do it today requires a change in the law and if they tried to push that through today they'd get their backsides handed to them on a plate.

Meanwhile back in the real world Binners is probably right, pension ages will continue to go up as pension costs increase and the welfare pot is squeezed by increasing health and social care costs which will also increase with life expectancy and improvements in medicine. Bear in mind despite the current crisis in social care for the elderly only around 20% of those needing care get it paid for by the state. The rest pay themselves, rely on friends and family for support or suffer with no support. If we have a crisis now think what it will be like when the state needs to pick 40% of the costs. Our welfare expectations (and expectations around inheritance) for the future are deluded.

This needs a radical solution. I propose retiring in your thirties. Seems like the best decade of life for fitness versus experience. Have ten to fifteen years of relaxing and enjoying life. Once you hit forty five it's back to work until you die on the job.

You don't have to do the same job at 65 as you would at 45.
You probably will not have the same responsibilitys and requirements at 65 as you do at 45.

I think there should be a partial pension age at which you can claim a % of your pension 0-100%. This can allow people to go part time. But if they wish to defer the pension there is a increase in pension a
When you do claim. This allow for flexibility of people life's and situation

Soylent green people, anyone had a Holland's pie lately?

According to the BBC calculations I should be saving £404/month for my pension. Which would be fine if I don't want to say, eat or in fact do anything other than pay my bills and mortgage...

@binners - That's the problem there are going to be people as there are now who need constant medical care and cannot work even if they wanted to. Some people are in a really bad state before the current retirement age never mind any older.

The governments plan (doesn't seem to matter who's in power) is to up the pension age in perpetuity. Think it was every ten years or so, can't remember exactly. It was a published plan to be instigated across Europe from what I remember, effectively designing state pensions out within a few generations. Stealth privatise the NHS piece by piece, cut all social security payments, in combination with dwindling incomes for the majority and old age is going to get really ugly for those (most of us) without considerable means or who were fortunate enough to benefit from investments, which will seem like decadent luxuries in the not too distant future.

But heyhoo as long as we get fast braodband, social media, free streaming telly, Audis, Apple products, oh and get pot holes, supermarket parent & child parking spaces, animal rights on a par with humans for the cute furry ones sorted then non of this shit matters, everyone else can get ta **** like 😉

Great, when will the MPs be voting on getting rid of their archaic gold plated pension scheme then?

We are not all in this together.

Nothing has changed, the Tories have expressed an aspiration to change the retirement age but don't plan to do it until 2023

So where does the part that says it's moved 7 years forward 2037 come from then? Why are you saying it's even earlier than that?

Binners
Future generations will stare in disbelief into how we all got hoodwinked into that particular pyramid scheme. I know I do.

Completely agree. It's just one giant Ponzi scheme.

The state pension age is not when you have to retire, you can do so before if you wish. Given the level of the state pension most people are earning much more money so at the very least they can increase savings in later years matching their lifestyle they will have if they have to rely 100% on the state pension.

As for suggestion above about variable wtihdrawl a commentator on Sky made the same suggestion, its an interesting one and matches what you can do with private pensions. Taking a smaller amount sooner would make sense for many

I think the SNP have a point that with the life expectancy in Scotland being lower perhaps they shoukd have a higher level of pension / earlier retirement but that only works if their system is fully funded which its not as rUK subsidises them.

Maybe it could be linked to your fried food and buckfast consumption?

Drac thats not what i meant. What they said on PM on radio 4 this evening was that to change the pension age required legislation and given the Tories lack of a majority they won't get it through now. Apparently there is a pensions review scheduled for 2023 which is when they said they are planning to actually enact what has been announced today into law. So bottom line is it's highly unlikely Maybot or even the conservatives or probably Corbyn will be in power then so theres lots of time for this to change (or possibly get worse when life expectancy is reviewed again after the 2021 census).

Edit: I can't see any mention of it on the BBC news website.

whitestone - Member

They (whichever government) made a mistake when they fixed it at 65. They should have specified it as X years younger than the average life expectancy. The advantage would be that the costs of pensions would be relatively static (allowing for inflation and population growth)

Would work in some professions but not others. I am already beginning to find my job physically and emotionally hard to do as a relativly fit 56 yr old. there is no way on earth I would be able to do this for another 12 years. simply not possible

Do you really want a 68 yr old policeman? Fire officer? Paramedic?

Do different job? That was easy.

How's about they just make it, work yer 35 qualifying years then ye can collect it, longer you leave it higher pension you get, and tax people accordingly to fund it..

Would work in some professions but not others. I am already beginning to find my job physically and emotionally hard to do as a relativly fit 56 yr old. there is no way on earth I would be able to do this for another 12 years. simply not possible

This only applies to the State pension. Claiming the occupational pension is different and can be claimed at a much earlier age, albeit with reduced payments.

5thElefant - Member

Do different job? That was easy.

Really - what do you think I should / could retrain as as a 60 yr old with a bad back and feet and no skills outside my profession that I will no longer be physically ans mentally able to do.

gonfishing - you realise that the tory attacks on our occupational pensions make this no longer possible - I am luck in that I will be able to take my small occupational pension at 60 - but people entering the profession after me will not - the only way to get your NHS pension before 65 in a few yers time will be to be retired as medically unfit. vastly reduced occupational pension and no state pension. So reliant on benefits

Really - what do you think I should / could retrain as as a 60 yr old with a bad back and feet and no skills outside my profession that I will no longer be physically ans mentally able to do.

I'm sure most people are more than capable of being useful in some capacity well into their old age. I certainly hope to be.

5th - I have very specialised skills and knowledge. What on earth do you think I could get a job as? given the almost impossibility of current 60 somethings even those with marketable skills have now in finding employment

Your grasp on reality is somewhat tenuous

Your lack of self confidence is disturbing.

Anyway, as a I said, if someone is unemployable put them on benefits. Universal pension is just weird. Why assume everyone useless at 68 when it's just a minority that are?

As usual on any pensions thread there are people moaning about how their generation has been screwed over by the baby boomers generation as if we should somehow individually feel guilty. The perception seems to be that the boomers took some sort of collective decision to "cheat" the generation coming after.

Well I'm sorry to have to knock that huge chip off your shoulders, but it didn't happen that way. Firstly, we didn't all have a massive meeting where we decided to be (as you see it) selfish. It's not physically possible.

"But it's in the way you voted" I hear you whinge. Again sorry, but we voted for a mix of right wing and left wing governments, so more or less balanced out. And I can assure you that pensions provision was very rarely ever mentioned. The vast bulk of us (myself included) gave it very little thought whatsoever when choosing how to cast our vote. We knew we'd have to contribute towards our own pensions as the state pension wouldn't be enough, and that's the same for you guys now. However as an election issue it was way, way down the list. Most folk voted (as they still do) for what was best for them, their family and their country. No-one was voting to see their children or grandchildren (i.e. you lot) hard done by in any way.

Also, life expectancy is rising faster that the state pension age, so your generation will on average have longer to enjoy retirement. How you fund that retirement is exactly the same problem our generation faced. There's no easy answer, and yes it's a balance between new bike today and better new bikes in a few decades, but trust me, we've all been there.

Every generation thinks it is hard done by. That's just the way life is I'm afraid.

What on earth do you think I could get a job as?

You could do any number of un-skilled jobs. But be better at them than some gormless youngster due to greater experience and confidence.

Perhaps some kind of quota system for oldies and youngies for companies? Only slightly serious.. but the state could step in somehow and encourage suitable employment for older people rather than simply pay for them..?

You for example TJ could be doing part time work training people in your special skills, researching or something - or maybe some kind of community work?

I dont have an issue with an increase in pension age in line with life expectancy.

What I dont agree with is this 'save more' rhetoric by the already comfortable.

Why not tax companies sufficiently to properly provide for those people when they can no longer work?
The shareholder would have to take a marginal hit but they are largely the pension funds.

If his whole freakin merry go round isnt mutually beneficial whats the point in it all?

I'm sure most people are more than capable of being useful in some capacity well into their old age. I certainly hope to be.

You're falling into the trap of "Well I'm capable and confident, so I see no reason why everyone else shouldn't also be."

If we are to keep people in suitable worthwhile work as I said, it needs to be managed and planned, we cannot leave it to market forces.

Oh and as per my first post AI is about to decimate many industries as mass employers so your prospect of get a job over 60 will be next to zero.

Someone somehow is going to have to pay for a lot of folk to do not a lot.

Higher tax or a society of the elite and the plebs are the only options.

It's hard enough changing career direction in your thirties. But we're expecting businesses to employ 60yr olds too knackered for their old jobs?

Really?

this thread is deppressing as it is.
here is my plan. try to steal enough cash and escape to sunny places.

I know it's a laughable as if. Anyone in the real world knows it won't happen on mass.

These ****s that talk about people as though we are chattels, lucky to be allowed to exist in the first place and should be bloody grateful, get ****ed.

It's my perception that the current generation in their 40s might get to retirement age in collectively physically better fettle than the generation that has just retired (arguable, but I'll let it go) but we'll be mentally knackered. We work harder and longer and put up with greater levels of work related stress than any non world war generation before by every measurable criteria. I have no doubt the generation after us will be worse again in that regard.

I suspect we (the age group who just had their working life extended) collectively might reach our 60s less useful to the world of work than is expected.

We work harder and longer and put up with greater levels of work related stress than any non world war generation before by every measurable criteria.

Try having that discussion with the generations that worked down the mines, in the shipyards and the steel mills. The generation that had no NHS and was lucky if they lived more than a year or two into their "retirement". I think you'll find they would just laugh at you.

Try having that discussion with the generations that worked down the mines, in the shipyards and the steel mills.

Done that. My father's family all worked in the Manchester steel mills for generations. Some gritty tales but also some surprising stories of an easy life by modern standards.

The generation that had no NHS

That'll be the ww2 generation I already mentioned.

lived more than a year or two into their "retirement"

Which was more about levels of health care, smoking, and urban pollution. All bad news but nothing to do with what I was talking about.

I think you'll find they would just laugh at you.

They might because most people think like you mentioned above that they personally had it worst. But I prefer the objective viewpoint of experts on the issue. Who would laugh at you. I'll dig out the details in the morning and post them up.

Try having that discussion with the generations that worked down the mines, in the shipyards and the steel mills. The generation that had no NHS and was lucky if they lived more than a year or two into their "retirement". I think you'll find they would just laugh at you.

Plus fighting a war

Done that. My father's family all worked in the Manchester steel mills for generations. Some gritty tales but also some surprising stories of an easy life by modern standards.

And my family worked in the shipyards so have heard similar tales. Yes, some some skiving certainly happened but by modern standards life was far tougher in those days. Plus longer hours and fewer holidays.

That'll be the ww2 generation I already mentioned.

Which was more about levels of health care, smoking, and urban pollution. All bad news but nothing to do with what I was talking about.

A lot of that urban pollution was caused by the appalling factories that many of those generations worked in. Those working conditions contributed a good bit to early deaths.

They might because most people think like you mentioned above that they personally had it worst. But I prefer the objective viewpoint of experts on the issue. Who would laugh at you. I'll dig out the details in the morning and post them up.

As I said earlier, every generation likes a moan. Don't get me wrong, when I was younger I did exactly the same. But my generation, and the current one, have on the whole had it very easy compared to the ones that went before. Yes there are still (too many) people working in rotten conditions but thankfully numbers (in the developed world) are way down on what they were.

I know I certainly wouldn't have wanted to lead the life my father and grandfather lived, even if they probably thought exactly the same about the generations that went before.

Oh and in those days they had proper jobs, not sitting around doing kid on work like HR consultants or relationship managers or Six Sigma analysts and many, many more. 🙂

ahwiles - Member

It's hard enough changing career direction in your thirties. But we're expecting businesses to employ 60yr olds too knackered for their old jobs?

Really?

Apparently so - if you have a tenuous grip on reality. the reality is most folk in my position will be retiring at 60 ish on health grounds and will thus be unemployable

TJ you won't be retiring at 60, you'll be joining the ranks of benefit recipients who for one reason or other can't work. There's a difference.

the reality is most folk in my position will be retiring at 60 ish on health grounds and will thus be unemployable

Same here I imagine

stumpy - no I will be retiring - I am one of the last cohort of NHS employees who can take their occupational pension at 60 tho I will have to wait until 67 to get my state pension

Its the folk who joined the NHS after me who will not be able to take their occupational pensions until 65 that concern me

Its OK for those of you that have jobs that are not physically demanding and emotionally destroying to suggest that a higher pension age is acceptable. Its not for those of us who do these sorts of jobs

I walk around 10 miles every shift. I lift and move several tonnes. I have to be able to respond coolly in highly emotional situations and make critical decisions while doing this. As a fairly fit 56 yr old its already a lot harder to do this effectively than it was 20 years ago. the chances of me remaining effective at 65 are close to zero.

£1bn vs £74bn

Ah, when you put it like that it is OK and as far as bribes go it is peanuts. We should be grateful that it wasn't more.