To think pensions need huge reform?

We pay alot of government workers a lot of money, you’d think they could do both?

They need to address why so many young people are claiming benefits and not working,

Absolutely they do, they already know why though. It’s lack of jobs. They just don’t want to admit it and the successive rises to pension age just means more people considered “working age” are scrapping over a shrinking pool of jobs.

Why shouldn’t people who have worked all their lives get to enjoy it?

How old are you OP?

Easy tiger. That's not what I said, is it?
I'm looking objectively at the proposal of working until the age of 75. I'm not making knee jerk ageist generalisations that no 75 year old could possibly do this. Fit, healthy 75 year olds who aren't doing manual work and don't have to struggle with commutes may find this possible. I'm your age and very much hope I won't have to retire in ten years. I'm fit, healthy, enjoy my work and it has no physical element. If I was a manual worker I imagine I'd view it differently.

Here we go again - 'all boomers are rich, they live in huge houses, they are selfish etc'.
News for you - a lot of us aren't rich, live in small houses bought with hard earned money and help our children as much as we can.
I am so tired of all this ageist rubbish.

And here is why we need that minimum education level to be raised.
Everythung written here is nonsense. Sorry poster.

But no the country can’t just print more money, in today’s parlance it’s called quantitative easing. In older times, it was debasing the coinage. Would you like to pay £1200 for your weekly shop? Because hyperinflation is a real possible consequence of just “print more money.” Countries can and DO run out of money and it’s not pretty. Empires have fallen. Wars. Famine. Poverty. Depopulation as refugees seek a country that is financially stable.

Not all public debt is actually investing in the country. Only public debt that is an investment (ergo there will be a predictable ROI) is good. All other public debt can ruin a country and should be embarked on with caution and a plan to get back out of debt.

The only limit to government spending is the need to control inflation, which should be handled via income tax. and Bank of England manipulating interest rates to control inflation is a blunt sword, hurts everyone except the ultra rich, and they need to stop it and let the tax bands do that work instead.

That’s really not how inflation is influenced, the government can’t control inflation, especially not via income taxes.

No it isn’t compared to the rest of Europe. Far from it.

Yes this

How are those with severe mental health problems supposed to eat?They should already be getting mental health treatment from the NHS but the system is broken thanks to years of Tory austerity. So why are they supposed to starve in order to get treatment they should already be having to stop their health getting to the stage they can’t work?Forcing the mentally ill who shouldn’t be there into work is a sure fire way to pushing them into inpatient which is a gazilloon times more expensive than being left at home to rot on benefits with no treatment.

Retirement at 89 and £100 a week pension thereafter. It's generous and everyone knows it.

Yes, the problem we have is we apparently need a quick fix for now as the country is struggling and a much longer term plan for the future that is sustainable.

Im suspicious the quick fix will be a small generation not getting enough notice to plan accordingly - with those older cushioned we cant let them starve and those younger properly forewarned with schemes set up.

When I started work pension age was 60 for women and lots of employers didnt offer pension schemes for secretaries and the like. Yes you could always have made your own arrangements outside of work, but no employer contribution and the expectation was very much this would be a supplement not a replacement.

If pension age is moved to 75, then I will stop contributing to my private pension and enjoy extra £600 a month while I am still capable of enjoying it. Or use it to pay off my mortgage so I can survive on state pension or whatever benefits are in place should it be cancelled by the time I reach retirement age. I know way too many people who are struck by ill health or die within a year of their retirement. I am not gambling on living till my 90s to "use up" the pension pot I built up.
I am fairly certain most people would do the same when they are told they have to work till they are dead.

What about those still renting and over the threshold for means tested handouts?

And still paying tax…..🙄

The people claiming pension now and the generation below them have paid for older people to get a pension the whole of their working lives. When I started work the state pension age for females was 60. Now it's 67. That's just the way it is. I had uncertainty during my working lifetime. What makes you so special you can't have uncertainty like previous generations did? I have told my DS state pension is likely to be 70 or even 71 before he will be able to claim it. He's paying into both a work place pension and a SIPP. I paid into Teachers Pension scheme and also a SIPP or equivalent throughout my working life. I've also paid through taxation for people of retirement age to have a state pension. I in turn expect to have a state pension. If it was brought in it would have to be be for aged 18 year olds not to pay for retired people so be paying less taxation to enable them to pay more into a work placed pension or SIPP. That would have to be mandatory for it to work. There are people who have never worked a day in their lives and got a free stamp for their pension. There are people who gladly live off benefits choosing not to work as they say it is not worthwhile for them to do so to only be a small amount better off than if they continued to work 20 hours a week and get UC top ups. Before pension stops I'd like to see UC with a cap for all people not just some and these top ups reduced for able bodied people.

Read what you replied to again. They stated that access to pensions should be at a fixed age. Not linked to state pension age. As it will be from 2028. I'm younger than you. My access to my private pensions is linked to state pension age. Which sucks.

1. It won’t always be 50% of the welfare budget. The only reasons it is a larger % now is because the biggest generation is collecting a state pension and we have had 15 years of austerity where everything else in welfare has been slashed to the bone.

2. Raising retirement age to 75 is unworkable. It exceeds total life expectancy in many regions of the UK and exceeds healthy (fit to work) life expectancy in all of the UK regions. State pension is cheaper than working age universal credit for people who are biologically too old & sick to work which is all you’d do by going from 67 to 75. Even the current planned rises to 70 are not going to save any money.

Yanbu to say we need a government to plan for the future though. We do, sadly most politicians have the same ideas you do which ironically shows Rishi Sunak was right and we really should require students to take maths and economics to A level as a basic minimum level of education.

So fed up with this. I’m in my late 50s and work in education. No way can I keep going until I’m 75.

We all need state decent pensions, it comes sooner than you think and UK state pensions are already at the bottom of state pensions in Europe.

I’d rather means test child benefit harder first. Far too many families fritter money on expensive endless tech kids don’t need , designer clothes, holidays abroad, eating out, coffee etc. Don’t really want my taxes paying to be frittered like that
and definitely don’t want money taken from pensions to continue to fund it.

Any and all benefits are not paid for by the taxpayer. That's a lie that politicians and the public alike seem to believe.

Also, the country can't run out of money. It's has a sovereign currency, it can simply print more.

The truth is that the government can fund anything it wants to and as such running a budget deficit is not only expected, its a good thing as it means the government is actually investing into the country.

This all makes perfect sense if you think about it. The government can't tax money that hasn't been spent in the economy yet. Therefore spend comes before taxes. Further, tax money doesn't go into government coffers, it is destroyed, and replaced with new money generated when the government spends.

This means, austerity is a lie. Politicians and the Bank of England are Liars too.

The budget is not like a household budget where you have a fixed amount coming in and therefore that's the limit of what you can spend. The only limit to government spending is the need to control inflation, which should be handled via income tax. Whilst we're at it, the Bank of England manipulating interest rates to control inflation is a blunt sword, hurts everyone except the ultra rich, and they need to stop it and let the tax bands do that work instead.

The problem is that those over 50
will have made provisions based on getting a pension at x age. It was 60 when I started work, move us now 67, likely 68. Whilst I was young enough for the rise to 65 not to be an issue, if it was moved more than a year or 2 I’d be screwed because we have financial plans based on 67

I agree with this. My DC are tweens and we've only just thought about/ had the spare money after years of childcare to contribute to Junior SIPPs. The compounding figures are mind-blowing.

I dont think people imagine that what will happen on the whole. They are assuming people will make a plan for a personal pension/savings to bridge the gap between when they want/need to retire and state pension coming in or will access other benefits if not fit to work or unable to find work.

All of these things work in a circle though.

If people work much longer then that has a knock on effect on the younger work force who then cannot get jobs, it has an impact on the parents who rely on grandparents to provide elements of childcare who would then have to pay for expensive formal childcare.

It has an impact on the health and safety considerations of workplaces. Increased sick leave as age naturally wears on the body would also affect employers. If you have too much sick leave then in many jobs you'll be made redundant so there's a balance to be struck between rewarding people for a long career and then punishing them at the end of it when their body just can't sustain the work any longer. Would you want to be out job hunting at 70?

It also has a very significant impact on the individual if your job is not really suitable for doing into later life such as very physical work. For example I work with highly volatile individuals- could I still be doing that at 75? Probably not. So certain career pathways would see an exodus of otherwise skilled and competent workers because they can't stay in that job long term.

The other impact of this op is that we NEED people in minimum wage and low earning jobs. Society literally would not function without them. It's all well and good saying people 'shouldn't' have a mortgage or big bills when they're elderly but the reality is that life is much messier than that. And a huge percentage of the population are not going to be in a position to pay big amounts into a private pension unless their wages increase substantially.

People get divorced, partners die, people end up ill for long periods, houses require significant repairs to be done etc that mean people find themselves needing to extend their mortgage period or simply not having the ability to save for long periods. Pensioners also need to run a car for example. This proposal of yours also is not rural proofed. It would have a significant impact on elderly in rural communities who are already more vulnerable. Never mind elderly who are actually carers for their disabled/ill children.

If you increase the age of pension and older people struggle more financially then you also have the perfect recipe for increased pressure on an already struggling healthcare system. It's important that pensioners can heat their homes, connect with others, move around and eat well because they're at increased vulnerability for ill health due to their age. Take away the safety net and more people will be leaning on healthcare services where before they were resourced to manage that independently.

Agree, 10m to China, why?