raising pension age

Gagajo
Come on ...
Expecting us to believe that you work a minimum of 10hrs a day 7 days a week. ??

Caledonail4
IDS proposing to raise retirement age to 70 by 2018?
Did you mean 2028?

I knew in 1996 that my pension would be paid at 61, not 60. At the time I was 43 and an extra year was insignificant. The goalposts were moved again in 2011, when I was 58. Suddenly I wouldn’t get my pension until I was 64 and three months, although someone born the day before me would get hers on her 64th birthday.

I fully appreciate that pension ages needed to be synchronised but the way 300,000 women were treated was scandalous. All my friends got/are getting pensions at different, apparently random, ages. Why didn’t they just make it 65 for all of us, then increase it in line with men?

The unfairness is what makes me angry. And the double whammy.

I'm not so sure about that, GagaJo. He's 70, isn't he? He might think that if he can be a PM hopeful at his age, anybody can carry on working.

Chewbacca, I followed the news and read newspapers, especially the Budget. I knew from the mid 90s and have tracked the changes since then, including the changes to eligible years and the rules for people who "opted out" by paying into an occupational pension. I will have 47 eligible years by the time I'm 66.

This is why

THIS boy s why we need Corbyn and Labour. Whatever your opinions about him, this farce won't happen with him at the helm.

There is no way I will be able to teach much more than another 3 or 4 years (54 now). It's ok for the elite who ponce about in a pretend job. What about those of us who work 70 or 80 hour weeks?

Whitewave, That's a really important point. On average, pensioners are reasonably well off, but the averages hide inequality. Changes brought about by Universal Credit have exacerbated issues. Pensioners are stereotyped as home owners with good pensions and a high level of disposable income. However, as you say, there are many in poverty and the benefit system does little to help them.

It would probably be helpful to see pensioners not as a homogenous group, but to look at levels of wealth and income for all ages across a lifetime.

Paddyann I think our birth dates are very close, judging from your posts and I agree completely with you that we received no warning about the deferred SRPA. I also received a letter, when I was 55 confirming that I had built up sufficient NI contributions to claim a full SRP at 60. At 58, I received another letter telling me that I couldn't claim it until I was 62. Then nothing more. It was only by seeing information in the media, or looking on YouGov that I kept track that I could claim until I was 65.5. The repeated changes, always just a matter of months before the expected retirement age, completely stymied planning for the future.

I'm baffled as to why some people, like growstuff were kept abreast of the constantly moving goal posts and others weren't.

*gg54g

Nearly 2 million pensioners live in poverty. I suspect that you were also born without an empathy gene.

Glad you wrote that, Chewbacca. I didn't dare!

I agree, Tweedle. Population is an interesting topic. The shortage of workers in China is pushing up wages, which means that China will no longer be able to produce bargain basement goods. The government has also implemented very strict anti-pollution laws, which will probably increase life expectancy and also increase the price of produce.

That is typical of my peer group.
We're all worn out by our mid 50s.

Gabriella, I normally ignore your posts but that has to be one of the most smug, self satisfied posts I've ever seen on GN. How wonderful for you that you have so much disposable income that you ^forgot about it until they reminded you^; I suspect that there a thousands of people who are dependent upon their state pension as their only income, mainly due to family, job type and personal circumstances that prevented them from having a private pension.

And a stressful job is indicative that they're in the wrong job? Really? Care workers, teachers, nurses etc all have stressful jobs but, thank God they do because without them, we as a society would be f****d without them.

Not only were you born without a worry gene; you also appear to have been born without the empathy gene too.

Yes, MissAdventure, The King's Fund research claims that there is a 19 year "good health" gap for men between the least and most affluent areas. That suggests that men in the least affluent areas start to experience poor health in their mid 50s.

growstuff I could not agree more. China, with its laws restricting numbers of children has proved that. They soon realised that they had to change their minds before they ran out of workers to support the elderly and sick.

Trouble with that is that the new young ones in their turn need support and the population continues to balloon.
That is why I say that it would take a greater brain than mine to come up with a solution.

Sorry, paddyann, I've known since the mid 1990s that I wouldn't receive my state pension until I was 65 (now 66). I honestly don't know how people didn't read/listen to the news at the time. I don't have much sympathy for people who don't take notice of the world around them.

If your work has always been manual then it's likely to have already taken it's toll, physically by the time you are in your 60s, maybe?

Just because you enjoyed work, Gabriella, doesn't mean everybody is in the same situation or enjoys the good health to carry on. You admitted yourself that you have never been stressed or anxious in your life. You are obviously very resilient. Unfortunately, many people are and have been stressed, anxious and/or physically ill.

The King's Fund report states that 63.3 is the average age when females stop experiencing good health. In my case, I was a little younger, but won't receive state pension until I'm 66. Many people are even younger when they experience ill health and find they cannot work or are forced out by employers.

Chucky I think you'll find that most if not all of us have no problem with working until the same age as men ..its the accelerated way they introduced it thats the problem.Many ,including myself were never informed about the changes ,in fact I had a letter in my mid fifties telling me I was on track for a full pension at 60!!!
If it hadn't been for the internet I wouldn't have known it had been delayed to 63 ....then the 65 and 10 months it is now .I have worked and paid NI since I was 15 .I have never had a break from paying,no maternity leave for example so the government have had 50 years and 10 months from me .
I'm livid that the last 5 years and 10 months of it are going to pay off THEIR debts..not debts I or any waspi woman accrued .

Tweedle, I agree that the earth is overpopulated, but the bigger problem is that a high percentage of younger, productive workers are needed to support older people. That isn't the case is most developed countries.

In developing countries, there tend to be more younger people, but they are very often unemployed/unproductive. People often have larger families in the hope that more of their children will survive and be able to support them as they get older.

Part of the problem is global inequality. Even in the UK, there is growing inequality between generations, social classes, education levels, etc.

I worked until well past 60 and didn't claim my pension until 68 (actually, I forgot about it until they reminded me)

I suppose it depends on the kind of work you're engaged in as to whether retirement at 67-70 is a step too far.

If work makes you stressed then you're in the wrong job. No job should make you ill unless you allow it to get to you or colleagues to annoy you so I guess it's more about your own personality rather than the job.

I've never been stressed or anxious in my life as I don't allow outside influences to affect my state of mind and believe me, I have been in circumstances where many people would subsequently need counselling or medication for anxiety.
I was born without a worry gene. ?

Me too Grannygravy, I should have received my pension at 60, four and a half years ago, by the time I'm 66 I will have lost out on nearly £52,000. What happens to all the pensions from people who don't live long enough to receive it? The whole thing is a shambles. It will be 80 soon enough!

The King's Fund produced a research paper in 2018 on life expectancy and good health. The whole thing can be read here:

www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/whats-happening-life-expectancy-uk

In case you don't don't want to click on the link or plough through the whole lot, here are some highlights:

By 2016 life expectancy at birth had increased to 79.5 years for males and 83.1 years for females.

Healthy life expectancy has also increased, but not at the same rate as life expectancy, so more years are spent in poor health. Although an English male could expect to live 79.5 years in 2014–16, his average healthy life expectancy was only 63.3 years – ie, he would have spent 16.2 of those years (20 per cent) in ‘not good’ health.

An English female could expect to live 83.1 years, of which 19.2 years (23 per cent) would have been spent in ‘not good’ health. And although females live an average of 3.6 years longer than males, much of that time is spent in poor health – they experience only 0.6 more years of good health than men.

People living in more affluent areas live significantly longer than people living in deprived areas. In 2014–16, males living in the least deprived 10 per cent of areas in England and Wales could expect to live almost a decade (9.3 years) longer than males living in the 10 per cent most deprived areas, and for females the gap was 7.4 years. The gap in healthy life expectancy at birth is even greater – about 19 years for both males and females, and those living in the most deprived areas spend nearly a third of their lives in poor health, compared with only about a sixth for those in the least deprived areas.