raising pension age

growstuff, you can pick from those that say they WILL or those that say they won't. At least with the ones that say they won't there's a chance of a pension.

With the Tories it's the wholesale dismantling of the welfare state. Fine if you have hereditary wealth. You're f**ked if you don't. And most of us don't.

Talk about living in dystopia.

I’m 58 & a secondary school teacher. The thought of any 75 year old woman coping with the cr*p that some students - and even some parents - serve up and meeting stressful Government targets etc, is horrifying.

They receive it at 65.5 by the way and their State Pension is set at a percentage of Male Total Average Weekly Earnings (MTAWE). Again, there are plans to change what this is set against.

This is a problem all over the world but I personally think it will have to become means-tested if we are not to have people dying or starving. This means people in the top 20% may well lose what one millionaire I happen to know use to call "petrol for the Bentley" but of all methods of keeping up with a large aging population it seems the fairest to me.

I believe the idea of Workplace Pensions came from looking at the Australian system. However they pay in a much higher percentage and they do still have a State Pension, which is means tested and received by 41% of the eligible population. Another 21% receive part payment and 20% are totally self funding. Seven percent receive a disability pension. I rather think this is our intended direction and that we will move to a means tested version with the highest income receivers dropping out of the State Pension.

I am 60 and work in a very busy school kitchen for 8 hours a day. It is very physical and I am on my feet the whole time. I am shattered!! My pension age is 66, and at the moment I can't see how I can make it until then, let alone having to work until I am 75. I am having to rely on state pension as I have nothing else, so have no choice but to carry on working.

It is easy for these politicians to decide this for us ordinary people who have real lives and jobs when we should retire.

They will never have this problem, they sit behind desks with no physical work involved. They need to start to live in the real world and understand not everyone is physically able to carry on work until they drop.

Workplace pensions are compulsory these days discodiva and employers are legally obliged to provide one and contribute too. However no one on a low/ minimum wage is never going to accumulate a decent pension pot to enable them to have a decent retirement , especially considering the providers take their cut from the contributions before anything is invested.

We are heading back to the times where only the “comfortably wealthy” will be able to enjoy any sort of retirement and the working class will work until they drop .

Labour is talking about flexible pension age which seems to me a good idea. It recognises that some jobs are stressful or physical and may need earlier retirement. Interestingly the Tories looked at this and rejected it-saying Mr Cridland did examine the problem that in some parts of the country and in some jobs, particularly manual work, life expectancy was lower, so pension claimants were in danger of getting the money for a shorter time, if at all.
But he recommended keeping the same pension age for everyone, saying there was "no effective mechanism that has been tested that would be able to target those with lower life expectancy".
Besides which it's only the poor and working class so what does it matter? They don't vote Tory!

Someone asked about when the Back to 60 Judicial Review outcome is expected, the Courts are now on their summer break until early October.

Hoping outcome will be known soon after.

That's not quite true, GagaJo. For a start, they're promises, but parties often change their minds when push comes to shove.

Secondly, Cridland is advocating an increase in the SPA, but the timetable would be slower.

Thirdly, there's no mention of potential increases in tax and NI to pay for pensions.

BBC Radio Scotland's phone-in programme is inviting comment on the proposed rise right now. 9.06am. 19th August. You can get them online but if you do that outwith the live programme you can't phone the free number. This first discussion usually lasts an hour.

As expected, Labour would not extend the pension age.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39887800?fbclid=IwAR11MZV8y579F4sxe0BC9tng_M2mlr3Uayi3kWYFEnP8w6E8W89RSGBrrX8

We have a job to do then! We need to encourage, cajole or whatever it takes to get our children, our grandchildren and great grandchildren to take responsibility (if they haven't done so already) for their pensions/retirement so that they don't have to rely on the state and can retire when they want to, and not have to go through what some of us are experiencing now.

It saddens me that the retirement that DH and I planned all those years ago will not happen. We will quite simply not have any retirement years to enjoy together. We don’t have private pensions (they went many years ago along with my house, static caravan and almost everything of any value) . We were never expecting a “comfortable” retirement just a few years of gentle living with 2 x state pensions when I was 60 and him 71.

Of course that is no longer to be and I am very sad for us and all of those in similar situations . There is no way DH could keep this up until he is 78 just no way .

I was [just] one of the lucky women; born in early May 1950, I was entitled to my state pension in May 2010. However, I did think it was right that pensions for women were adjusted to be in tune with those for men, but I expected that to be a gradual process over a substantial number of years. I would not have had any problem if that had delayed my pension for a few years.

I am disgusted by the way the age eligibility has been increased for men, but particularly for women with so little warning. Many women have planned their retirement financing, some working in jobs where retirement is automatic at 65, but their carefully thought-out arrangements, especially savings and investments, cannot be changed abruptly because they were always long term.

It isn't my fault but I actually feel quite rotten about the fact that I was in the last tranche of women to receive a pension at 60 and many of my friends are now having to wait a lot more years for theirs.

GabriellaG54 I no longer do paid work but for years it was not at all unusual for me to put in 70 or 80 hours a week. I used to joke that absentdaughter must have thought I was Cousin It because all she ever saw was the back of my head. That was a bit too near the truth to be funny.

The Centre for Social Justice? A Think-tank for which social justice is anathema. No mention of fact State Pension is lowest in developed world. As those sitting in HoL sleeping and benefitting from subsidised food and drink receive “non taxable? expenses of up to £300 per day working people are living in poverty. Just watched Poldark and scenes in the HoC in the early 1800s and was struck by the sense nothing has changed. This government are incompetent, deceitful and unfit for purpose

Well said Chewbacca

Of course they have to raise the pension age and if Johnson wins in the next election we will have to pay for all his buying of votes AND a no-deal Brexit. The only way the can do this is by taxes and by cuts in benefits that will damage yet more people and, once in power, could well included a pension freeze - let's face it, they've taken it from everyone else.

My father was a headmaster too. He was also one of the laziest men who walked this earth and loathed children as well.

She does annep1, she does. Only a self centred, egocentric, narrow minded, tunnelled visioned fool who lives in a vacuum would not.

GabriellaG54
And I certainly wouldn't choose a vocation that ultimately caused me stress anxiety and ill health
Many don't have that choice.

How do you not know that??

Well I'm 74 and working part-time in my own business, not entirely my choice, many small businesses are put off by placing their computers in the hands of someone they think may soon be in a wooden suite

However my intention is to continue well into my 80s as long as my wife and the fellow up stairs permits it.

Deedaa, my position exactly. I'm on a temporary contract at work and doubt I'll get another permanent contract at my age. I'm practically being forced to move overseas again, where they value older teachers.

We already find people who have been made redundant in their 50s and 60s who are unable to find employment. Most employers are looking for younger people, especially if they want to fill a vacancy which requires expensive training.

If I hadn't retired to provide childcare for DD she couldn't have worked and would probably been claiming benefits. The last few years I have been caring for my terminally ill DH. If I had been working he would have needed care from the state. Not giving me a pension would just have ben costing the state in other ways.

Thanks for that Absthame, I never thought of the starting age. Mind you now only need to pay in for 35 years for a full pension so if for instance the average age of starting work was say 25 (just to be generous) that would mean you had enough credit at 60. So the government are still being b.....s and making a hell of a lot of money from it to add to what they have already made. Whatever job you do it is unreasonable to expect a person to work until 75. I am 72 and at times I cant even remember what day it is let alone think about the complexity of a work environment.