Bring Back Immediately State Pension at 60 for Women

Aka too true, you can't pick and choose the bits of being equal

Sel Aka couldn't agree more!

I realise that it is easy for me to say this when I have been safely retired and drawing a state pension since I was 60, but in principal I too agree that the State Pension age should be the same for men and woman. In fact, logically, given the longer average life span of women, there is a case for women being required to work longer than men before drawing their pension (but please don't point this out to the powers that be ).

Good point G23. Over 50% of the welfare bill already goes on pensions as opposed to about 10% on the unemployed or unemployable. I think we'd do well to realise this.

Men die as part of nature earlier than women. For equality to deal with that nature, then men's retirement should have been at 60 as well. But from the War the state pension was 65 for men and 60 for women.

What was discrimination, for both men and women, was that the higher age related tax allowance was at 65, when women's retirement age was 60 from the War.

Well that tax allowance has been lost in 2013 altogether to both genders, when the finance boffins tells us that to pay basic bills, eat and not be in fuel poverty you need at least £10,500 on average, and in London a pensioner would need £12,500. So the £10,500 was too low. Now with that extra tax loss, pensioners are losing their state pension to tax if they had any savings, any works pension, have a little part time job.

And the equality of women to men has gone or is going from 2016.

Austerity Job Cuts in public sector hit the majority of its employees who are women.

From 2016 the contribution years to qualify for a state pension rises from 30 to 35 years, so as most are getting a pension after 2020, many will never get a full state pension, if any at all.

Married women who were told it was OK to keep on married women's stamp now find that money all went for nothing.

And from 2016 married women will not be able to get a state pension from all the wasted extra contributions of their husband's NI contributions, that will not give him any extra for household bills from the wife's state pension. Lost altogether.

PIP will lose current disabled people any help by the hundreds of thousands, probably throwing a fair few into the nil benefit of the unemployed. A fair few reckoned fit for work disabled / chronic sick may even die from the stress of being left penniless, with no other source of income and no chance of a job after 55. (Source CAB). Those assessing disability are not senior specialists medical consultants to make an expert opinion, but companies making huge profits yet not helping the nation out of recession but incurring more public sector debt borrowing.

Able bodied over 50s have a 50% unemployment rate, that rises to 60% for over 60s.

All this pain and suffering has achieved nothing and will achieve nothing as the basic assumptions of Austerity and Welfare Reform are fatally flawed.

We are a nation of 100% taxpayers.

Everyone pays tax from the 75% of taxes gathered from people that comes from Indirect Taxes and VAT, even on food, collected from every single adult.

Only 26p in the pound comes from work income tax from individuals.

Austerity and Welfare Reform is not lowering the welfare bill but putting every greater public debt on the nation from all the costs of its admin and costs of private contracts.

If the money wasted on this bureaucracy had all gone on Fiscal Stimulus to the economy by government since 2010 (we had a change of government then, but the recession began in 2008) then the nation would not be in recession today.

Our upper class political class just want to do what they have always done to the poor and punish them for the 'crime' of poverty. But the world is not as it was in history.

There are no scroungers.
Only taxpayers.
All of us.

Pensioners contributing over £40 billion a year.

And the lowest in income pay more as a percentage of their own money (not another's taxpayer funds) in Indirect Taxes than any other income level.

Once the basis for Austerity and Welfare Reform is undermined, then the whole edifice falls.

There is but one party (and I don't belong to any party I do assure you) is TUSC - Trade Unionist and Socialist Against Cuts www.tusc.org.uk
who said the truth about state pensions:

- state pensions are deferred wages (or taxes for that matter) from our youth and not some generous gift of government (and all of the people of our nation are the government not just the politicians) to be withdrawn at whim.

All our entire current political class offer anyone over 50 is nothing, but either left penniless or taxed more than other sectors of our society.

The richest people (a mere 300,000 of a 60 million population) of any age, got a 5% income tax cut from this year.

And the so-called well off pensioners may well lose any or all benefits, winter fuel allowance, bus passes, etc, when we all know that savings are paying the bills, not interest with the capital left untouched.

The hatred of people over 50 is amazing in society and being promoted by our political class through the media. Yet if you look at politicians, they are around that age group themselves. But politics' worse vitriol is towards women in their late 50s.

So state pension are affordable, no matter how long we live.
Because we are paying for however long we live.

Because this is not just the fact of state pensions, but about benefits, about jobs, about growth, about breaking the Big Lie that is Austerity and Welfare Reform in a recession.

What killed Detroit was over-reliance on one industry, no fiscal stimulus to bring in new industries and investment in anything that might have encouraged new inward investment. It is a political failure because that is the core role of government, that our current political class seem to have forgotten, if they ever knew it.

It is our business community that think that by pensioner-bashing we will get out of recession.

But the high street died because of pensioner poverty and loss of benefits as well as flat-lining or cut basic wages, because it is the working class who shop in the town centres.

Enough of rant.
Here is the petitions
Mine on 38 Degrees -
you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/state-pension-at-60-now

that supports the basic petition on 38 Degrees from all the changes coming in 2016 -
you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/revert-to-the-governments-promise-regarding-no-increase-in-the-state-pension-age-until-2016-2012

You might care, please, to spread these petitions through your Facebook pages and other social media and encourage others to sign. Thank you. I wish I was up to date with knowledge to get on social media, but I am not, nor am I anything other than brassic. Why would other people be so keen on my death and that of thousands of people like me? I can't understand it, really.

Thank you for taking the time to write all that sunseeker you must feel very strongly about this issue. However I feel some of your statistics ate incorrect and some of your statements too eg. I always knew that if you wanted a state pension in your own right then you had to pay a full stamp.

Yes - I think it was back in the 70s that you had to make the decision, if you were married, whether to continue paying the reduced rate if you already were, therefore relying on your husband's contributions to ensure you got the couples' pension, or to pay the full stamp for one of your own.

It was widely publicised at the time, and employers had to ask their married women employees what their choice was. If you were already paying the full stamp (which I was), you couldn't transfer to the lower rate.

I think it was Seeker not Sunseeker

Sunseeker is still off-duty in Bristol.

When a lot of signatures have been collected on paper, would it not be better to collect the forms and send them as a paper petition? Transferring them to 38 degrees en masse sounds a possible route to having someone accuse you of falsifying the returns.

Not Sunseeker she was with me!

Oops! Too much sun! Thanks for the heads up Elegran apologies to Seeker & Sunseeker

And thanks to you too Galen (did think it didn't sound like Sunseeker)

Wow! Seeker that was an informative rant as you put it, I thank you for the education, you obviously feel very passionately about the whole issue and to be honest I agree with you. I have never subscribed to the belief that the so called austerity cuts were a necessity. I would have thought that a no brainer would be to arrange collection of all the tax which is avoided illegally and then close the loopholes to legal avoidance schemes and collect that too. With that done there would be no need for any cuts I would imagine.
The next hit I am told is the universal credit and its long term administration has yet to be decided,allegedly. Capita or G4S? it seems they are awarded most government administrative contracts.
I think we are all being led down the garden path and the retirement age is just one of the ploys in use to secure more cash for the exchequer. Vigilance is needed but I'm not at all sure there is too much we can do about it other than using our votes carefully - not that there is any choice any more.

Well said. You are right apathy rules. Just look at some of the comments on here. We must make a stand.

France have repealed the changes to the State Pension Law made by the previous Government. It can be done

Please sign and share!!

http://you.38degrees.org.uk/p/statepensionlaw

All I know is that I'm retiring at 61 3/4 and I really don't know how men or women are supposed to work till they're 67 as I'm done in now .

I'm still working 4days a week and the fifth is spent reading all the files for the other 4days.
I'm 68

But surely you're getting your state pension as well, Galen, or chose to have it deferred?

No! I have (and spend) it!

What I'm trying to say is, that if you can work why not?

Yes, I agree! I am as well...

The problem is where is all of the money going to come from.
I was fully retired by 60 because I have paid extra in to my occupational schemes during the time I worked.
I don't expect it to be the same for people who have not paid the extra.

Frank

Galen, it's great to hear you are working and enjoying it. I worked to 60 and planned to continue, loved my work and for the first time in my life, had enough income to save a bit. It wasn't to be, ill health got me overnight and it became clear I wouldn't be fit to work again. Many people develop health problems in their 50's, or as in my case, a chronic life changing condition I have had since my mid 20's went into overdrive an ended any hope I had of working longer. I am fortunate to have a state pension alongside the one I paid into at work.
Picking the arbitrary date of April 2013 as the one by which women have to have reached their 60th birthday to qualify for the pension they'd all contributed to, believing it would arrive at 60 - so unfair. As Sunseeker/Seeker pointed out, most of the women who aren't working in their late 50's early 60's are on some form of disability benefit, because they are unfit to work. The governments approach to the disabled/sick means that the majority of these people will be found "fit to work". This will include so many women who are cancer patients, or suffer from chronic health problems like rheumatoid arthritis. Women who have never signed on in their lives will be expected to apply for job seekers allowance and take zero hour contracts if retail establishments offer them work. The stress, anxiety and depression that will erode the lives of this group of women (and their families) is dreadful.

It's also dificult to continue working when that work is physically demanding and work conditions are unacceptable ; and also when you want to reduce your hours but are not allowed to [probably because new recruits are paid a lot less, but I may just be being cynical].

I worked until I was 61, in a big comprehensive school, where I ran quite a lot of things. I think I'd reached burn out; on the road at 6.00, home about 6.00, (DH doing the same sort of thing) added to the stress. I loved my job, but was glad to leave it!

I had quite a few months off when I had cancer, and that sort of thing sharpens your perspective on life and work and the balance thereof!

Yes; when the work/life balance is out of kilter it's time to do something. I've just been finding that [and it had crept up on me without me noticing it] that I was doing less and less in my free time because I was so tired, and then being called on to cover for people that were off work [probably with stress]. Although I kept pointing out that I was getting older and feeling tired but was prepared to do my own work no one listened. Had I been allowed to cut my hours [and didn't have a lot of problems booking time off when I wanted it] I probably would have carried on forever.

I will be 68 in the New Year and am still working in London. I plan on working at least another year as I really enjoy my job. Commuting a bit of a hassle but apart from that I'm very happy.