As one of the 60 year olds with over 40 years of contributions who has to wait another 6 years for her state pension, I'd say just don't get me started.....

Ditto !

I am 53 and have worked since I was 16. I only took the bare minimum time off when my 2 children were born and returned to work within a couple of months. I am now being told that my predicted pension age is 67 which will undoubtedly rise over the coming years. Perhaps there will come a time when only the priviledged few (those with nice fat private pensions) will be-able to retire at all and those of us in the "real" world will have to work until we drop.

Me too Maggiemaybe!
I'm 61 and struggling to work because of ill health yet I have another 52 months before I can retire and I seriously wonder if I'll live long enough to get my pension.
Of course making people work longer means some will die before claiming, and the length of time a pension is paid will be shorter.

I never expected to have to work longer and being the sandwich generation I'm pulled from both ends and

I really do feel for all those of you who were sold a pup in the form of the NI scheme and now find themselves having to work well past the age at which they had expected to retire.

I was lucky and skimmed in to the bracket for getting my pension at 60 - a reduced pension because of missing out on the rules that compensate for years taken to rear children - but a pension nevertheless.

I do question the wisdom of this new policy for many reasons, but particularly because of the sorts of ill heath that gradually afflict those in their 7th decade and make full time working difficult. There is no way that I could have been in full time work for at least the last 5 years, and I would have been a burden on the state with sickness benefits. Better that this burden should have been in the form of retirement pension and my job taken by a young person starting out and life with a mortgage etc.

I think that what made it worse was first being told I had to work to 63 years and 4 months, then 65 and 3 months. I fully expect them to move it again before I get there , in which case I will truly despair.

Well at least we're getting some publicity for the issue now:

paullewismoney.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/women-given-just-2-years-notice-of.html

The more people who know about it, the better. WASPI (Women against State Pension Inequality) is working tirelessly on behalf of women affected.

Older people in there sixties need pension . Not go on sickness benefit , give the younger people a job.

Isn't the real underlying expenditure issue for politicians public sector pensions. These are paid for by the state - there is no investment pot to fund them. So all the teachers NHS staff, police etc whose index linked pensions have to be funded by taxpayers. On top of their state pension. Many of these are middle class and have a very good life expectancy at retirement age. Take my cousin for instance - retired about 30 years now from academic life and still going strong. Guess her pension must be in the region of 35k pa.
Noticed the "you're getting on when the retired policemen look young" syndrome? I have.
This has probably been one of the hidden agendas in all the outsourcing and privatisation we have seen in the last 30 years. (all those retired water, electricity, gas etc workers no longer paid for by state). And one of the reasons why Osborne is on a mission to further "shrink the state"?
Some European countries have granted much earlier state retirement ages to public employees than most of ours and, since 2009, this has been causing them serious problems.
No easy answers - on the one hand older people in the workforce can be preventing the young from progressing in their careers. On the other hand if huge numbers of healthy late middle aged people are leading a life of enforced and heavily state-funded leisure, that is also... not fair on the young who have to generate the wealth and pay the taxes to fund this luxury.

This luxury?! We paid for our pensions through lower salaries and then contributions and I don't know anybody with a public sector pension of £35k! They'd have to be on at least £52k to get that amount!

And public sector pensions are now linked to inflation, not earnings so most get no increases because inflation is not increasing.

You are making sweeping statements about thousands of people. The exception is not the norm.

I agree with every word that WilmaKnickersfit has written. We had much lower salaries throughout our working lives so I do not see where the luxury comes in. I worked for every penny I get in the form of a pension now, having worked full time from 1962 until 2002 with no break in service.

I know at least 5 people that I can think of who retired at 55 with very good pensions. All ex public sector. 1 NHS, 2 police, 1 fire service (woman) and 1 civil service. Actually make that 6 I know an ex school cook too.

I can appreciate that there is a problem with people living too long but it will always be those who are well off and with the best quality of life who will statistically live the longest whilst those of us unfortunate enough to have to work until we are almost 70 will no doubt drop dead soon after we are able to retire.

Jess I too have one of these pensions you are speaking of - the maximum pension for a teacher is 40% of final salary. When I retired not many female teachers were actually able to fit in 40 years of teaching to receive this amount of pension - unless changed greatly it is calculated at 1/80 of final salary for each year worked.

Salaries have always been reduced because of the pension even though a large proportion of a teaching salary is taken as superannuation.

As Wilma says you are making unfounded sweeping statements.

I could not afford to retire at 55 although I could have if I had wanted. I was still paying a hefty mortgage so I kept going until 60 and then used my tax free lump sum to pay it off leaving me with zilch extra but that is London living.

I too am furious. I have paid my'stamp' in full and now need and want to help out my sick and elderly parents.

This I could have done comfortably if I could have had my pension at 60. This ruling must be changed!

Even the thought of retiring at 60 makes me smile Charleygirl but working on and on until almost 70 is a daunting prospect.

I again urge all ladies to sign the petition and join the WASPI Facebook page.
This campaign is our only hope of getting this mess sorted out. I agree the state pension age needed to be raised but it has been done in such an unfair way for us ladies born in the 1950s. Please support this. It was mentioned last night on the BBC Watchdog Pension Programme.

Well I'll be upfront about my luxurious level of pension.
DWP £ 6514 plus teaching pension funded through my substantial superannuation contributions and annuity from personal savings (avc's)
£8798. After £ 960 deducted in income tax that's approx £14350 net.
Luxury NO but because of my own contributions and savings I'm ok thanks.
Please note that this is not quite close enough to the level where I can claim pension credit and concommitant benefits.
I had 2 breaks in teaching service for my DCs but always had parttime jobs and paid NI.
Anyone else claiming an equally extravagant level of 'free' pension like to 'fess up'?

Well I have succeeded in provoking debate it seems.
Senior teachers, senior academics and senior managers in public sector all get over £53k Wilma.. I knew a deputy head who retired and bought himself a whopping new Audi to celebrate. Not many middle managers in the private sectors will be anything like as well off.
I think it is a luxury for a society when people can retire, live for 25-30 more years and have lots of holidays. This is not uncommon it would appear.
As a contrast I was talking to a neighbour in her 80s earlier. Her husband was a gardener. She was telling me she had only ever travelled out of the UK once, when her husband treated her to a weekend in Amsterdam.

gillybob I appreciate that the idea of retiring at 60 now looks ridiculous but that was the norm in 2002. I was so fortunate that I was born in 1943 and not 10 years later.

I think that it is disgraceful that people are having to drag themselves to work in their mid to late 60's and as somebody else mentioned, it will be retirement and then death fairly soon because the retirement age will be in the 70's. It is fine for the likes of George Osborne with inherited wealth and I do not think that he has had a "proper" job to dictate to us at what age we should receive our pensions.

I was a senior civil servant and I can assure you that my total pensions ( OAP, civil service and late husband's pension ) do not total up to £53k gross.

As an ex NHS employee I must reiterate that I contributed to my pension. It was not somehow free or tax payer funded. In addition I also had to buy past added years to make up for time spent with children. A significant proportion of my salary just disappeared towards my pension. It was hard at the time but worth every penny to me now. Saving for my pension was very important to me. I looked on it as buying my freedom from work. I also bought FSAVCs.

I'm ex-NHS too, I worked damn hard for every penny of my pension, low pay for years, unsocial hours etc. I remember friends who weren't in the Public Sector being horrified at how low nurses pay was/is.
As well as continuing to work I spend 20-30 hours a week caring for my very elderly parents, it's bl...y tough.

The whole idea of making people work till they are older ignores their role as carers to elderly parents.

I just detest the principle that you pay in under one expectation and the goal posts are moved - that is just plain dishonest. If a private pension scheme did this, they would be in trouble.

mcem - my pensions amount to just over half of what you get. If it were not for the fact that my OH gets a slightly larger pension we would be in trouble. Neither of us have a total pension that it would be possible to live on. If my OH were to die I would be right in the mire.