raising pension age

Well said Chewbacca

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

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.

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.

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 .

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.

As expected, Labour would not extend the pension age.

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

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.

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.

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.

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!

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 .

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.

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.

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’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.

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 agree with most of what you've written, Gagajo. Unfortunately, I just don't trust Corbyn to keep his promises. In any case, he hasn't ruled out increases in taxes and NI to fund a pension age status quo.

For the record, I wouldn't want to increase the state pension age by much (if at all), but I do think people are going to have to contribute more.

Some people point to the higher pensions in countries like Germany, but I wonder if they're aware how much Germans contribute to their pensions.

I continued to pay NI voluntarily while living overseas to protect my pension, despite there being no legal requirement to do so. I wasted my money.

Without wanting to be overly pessimistic or too much of a drama queen, a big part of me is glad I'm getting on in age. Pensions, right wing governments, climate change, losing access to health care and education. The world is sliding towards destruction and no one seems able to stop it. At least I'll only have a few more years to endure it.

I feel the same GagaJo!
At least we don't live in South Africa though. My opposite number Gran lives there. She contributed to the pension scheme and finally reached the right age to claim it. It wasn't much after all the years the equivalent of about £100 a month. When she went along with the forms to claim it she was just turned away and told that as she had a house she had no right to claim a pension. There's no appeal. Just nothing.
Our governments may not be terrific but at least things aren't like that here.

How do you work out that you wasted your money? Every full year of NI contributions is worth something over £4 a week.

growstuff, because I already had enough contributions for a full pension. And to be honest, I don't think I'll be around much after 67, if I make it that far.

If you've been working in state schools and paying into the Teachers' Pension scheme, you possibly don't have enough for a full pension, so those years will count.

I will have a total of 47 years of contributions, but I still won't be eligible for a full state pension because I paid into an occupational pension scheme. Therefore, I still pay NI contributions which boost my future payments.

If you haven't already done so, check your pension entitlement with Government Gateway.

You need 35 years of paying NI without any contribution to an occupational pension.

No teachers pension. Just state pension.