State retirement age is too old for working class people

[Spiceup]

An observation from some things I've seen lately. I'll explain.

I work in a public sector organisation that employees highly qualified and very well paid professionals alongside support staff on not much more than minimum wage and those in between.

Part of my role is managing sickness absence. What I am seeing lately is that the professional types, despite doing what are generally accepted to be stressful jobs, on the whole, stay well until well into their sixties, although many do retire earlier simply because they have the kind of pensions that make that possible.

People in the more lowly jobs are often genuinely finished by their mid-late 50s. Just worn out and suffering from multiple health problems. Perhaps because of their lifestyles or maybe from just having harder lives (not necessarily harder work lives, but getting by is just generally harder for them). To have to go on to 67 is just absurd and very few do, with ill health retirement common (so the state is paying anyway).

I can't begin to imagine how similar people manage in genuinely physical jobs, in construction for example.

Is it more common for working class people in their 50s to be worn out, or perhaps more comfortably off professionals retire before they get to that point so I don't see it?

The Queen is still working at 95

@TractorAndHeadphones

What’s long though - 5,10,20 years?

I think it should be at least a quarter of the time you've worked, and while you have a chance of still being in reasonable health to enjoy it.

Why is the only choice a full-time job or nothing?

It depends on your circumstances. I mentioned upthread that I personally might consider 'semi-retirement' by going part-time at, say, 55 - but I am fortunate to have a small company pension I could take from the age of 50 to top up part-time working. I also have no dependents to support and by extension, no one to inherit my assets, so potentially I could release the equity from my house at some future point to help me survive.

Someone with no company pension or one they couldn't take before state retirement age, who didn't own their house (purely by virtue of my age I was able to get on the property ladder in my 20s even though I didn't earn much because house prices hadn't yet gone bonkers) and had DC to support might have no option but to work full-time to the bitter end.

@Day5DayandNight5

The Queen is still working at 95

If my 'work' was being chauffeured round in a Rolls to be fawned over while servants did all my housework, punctuated by months' long holidays in Balmoral and Sandringham, with a 'salary' in the millions, I'd happily 'work' till I dropped dead.

The queen is still working😂😂😂😂

That’s hilarious!

Doesn't the fact that the Queen is still able to work at 95 rather prove my point that life takes a harder toll on those who have a harder life?

@Spiceup

Doesn't the fact that the Queen is still able to work at 95 rather prove my point that life takes a harder toll on those who have a harder life?

No, it proves nothing, she is one person, you cannot draw any conclusions from a sample size that small.

@Day5DayandNight5

The Queen is still working at 95

Cool, I'll give her a bell the next time a 12 hour (or 12.5-14 if you count the bits you're not paid for) nightshift needs covering👍 hope she don't mind paying for her own uniform and DBS, getting min wage and getting hit/kicked/bitten spat and sworn at 🤷

@Spiceup

Doesn't the fact that the Queen is still able to work at 95 rather prove my point that life takes a harder toll on those who have a harder life?

It 100% does prove your point, OP.

Even leaving aside the general ease of the Queen's life, she'll always have had immediate medical attention for the slightest ailment - no being stuck on endless NHS waiting lists, no having to drag herself through a physical job when she's ill because otherwise, the bills won't get paid.

She's had personal chefs cooking nutritious food for her all her life - no getting back knackered from a late shift and being too tired to do anything but bung a 'value' lasagne in the microwave.

Of course she's fit and healthy by the standards of her age. She'd have had to make very bad, conscious lifestyle choices not to be.

a much wittier way of putting it than I was about to! You can’t compare the “work” the Queen does, nor the rewards, nor the healthcare she will get.

@Day5DayandNight5

The Queen is still working at 95

Ah yes, and she's the epitome of deprived working class.

YANBU OP - manual work and deprivation are both strong indicators of poor health in later years. Work in certain industries where people are exposed to chemicals/smoke etc. is also a factor.

Individual examples obviously vary a lot, but on a population level, the data is very clear.

My dad (manual worker all his life, otherwise healthy lifestyle, but very much WC) is in poorer health than my FIL who is the same age (middle class professional job, comfortably off). It's noticeable that my dad's body has worn out faster after years of manual labour.

Oh, well actually she'd be off sick at the moment wouldn't she? Wonder how she's going to pay the gas bill at Buck House out of SSP?

@Day5DayandNight5

The Queen is still working at 95

The queen has the best of food, housing, healthcare. She also doesn't have to lug heavy things around and never has.

The Queen still working at 95. I think the world of HM but she does spend several months a year up at Balmoral on holiday and has a life other people can only dream of. I don’t think you can compare HM to the average non-skilled worker who is worn out before their time.

@TheABC

There's a tsunami coming our way in terms of pensioner poverty and a care crisis over the coming years. The assumption has always been that people will have some savings and a significant majority will own a house. That's not true for the Millennial generation, onwards who have been dealing to crazy house prices and declining affordability.

On top of that is the idea that people will take care of their elderly parents. This assumes that the children will have the time and leisure to do so, no health problems of their own, no need to pay into a pension (carers allowance is a joke) and actually exist in first place! Families are getting smaller, poorer and more fragmented.

The middle class will inherit from their parents, they will be fine. Nobody cares about the poor anyway.

@julieca

What am I wrong about precisely?

The Second World War appears to have limited impact on the life expectancy of UK men. There's a chart here. I was surprised by that as I would have expected that many men who survived the war would have had impaired health.

But I think that's beside the real point, which is that the pension age was never adjusted downwards to take any account of this. The reason why it wasn't would certanly have been because of money - the UK was far more cash-strapped then than now on account of war debt and maintaining a far greater military than now.

My point is that the expectation then was that breadwinners worked till they dropped, basically. If they were lucky they would probably get a couple of years state pension while probably in a pretty poor state of health. If they were in manual occupations they would have been working in increasingly poor health before they were entitled to anything. I daresay there was some provision for those considered too sick to work.

And once again I'm not saying this was a good thing. The point I'm making is that since then - and contrary to what people often think - government funding for old age provision through pensions and healthcare has increased enormously because life expectancy increased more than the pension age for decades. That's a perfectly good thing if the economy can support it. And the economy has - hitherto - supported it by a) increased taxes b) reduced expenditure on many other things c) mass immigration of working-age people to generate taxes and d) borrowing. If you look at government expenditure generally - not just in this country but all developed countries - you see that this is the single biggest expenditure, and spending on things like overseas aid, education, police, transport and defence are comparatively small.

Oh - I missed your point about voluntary groups and paying for things that used to be free. I completely agree. But I think that has got more to do with people not having as much time now - if both parents of a family are in FT jobs then who can help out with Scouts etc? Also, voluntary organisations require a lot more admin now due to regulations etc. My DM spent much of her life being involved in social groups. A lot of what used to happen has just stopped. They can't get the volunteers and the work required to do the same as before has increased. People are also less inclined to be part of voluntary organisations - see for example the massive decline in organised religion.

It's a tremendous loss to the community - one which I don't think has been properly realised - but I don't think it's got that much to do with pensions.

[quote loislovesstewie]@0verth1inker, the point is that private pensions are funded by contributions being invested. If NI contributions had been invested and ringfenced for the state pension then surely that too would be self funded? Instead, the NI contributions just disappear into general government funds hence why we have current workers funding current state pensions.[/quote]
This is the fundamental issue, yes. This is not how it works in most countries because it's obvious that it will leave you massively exposed to demographic shifts. It was utterly stupid to structure it like this (like so many other parts of life in the UK: education, health...) but it's entirely the fault of successive Governments and nobody but them can fix it.

I am appalled at how older women especially have been treated (I am in my 30s). I think it is a disgrace.

We've seen with Covid that when they feel they need to fund something they can. So they could have sorted this out years ago but I agree with the PP who said nobody cares. Until it affects them personally. Which it will when it all implodes.

If people won't lobby MPs en masse to set up sustainable and decent healthcare, pension etc systems like most other developed countries have then nothing will change.

@Boood

Maybe we need to do something really radical, like mandate that everyone under a certain age- say 35- does physical work, and then moves into a less physically demanding job as they get older. And not make exceptions for the intellectual elite or anybody else. A system like that could actually have some interesting positives: maybe you’d be more likely to choose work that genuinely suited you if some of the social expectations were different- if you couldn’t be a lawyer or a hedge fund manager, for example, until you were older.

Bloody hell. When did you escape from North Korea?

I'm 42 and I remember my first job at 18 (private company) saying most people draw a pension at 55 or 60!
I remember most retiring in their late 50's or 60's
I reckon I'll be about 70!
It's a depressing thought really people just won't get a retirement and I agree people on less money can't save as much
And have to work longer, develop health conditions and higher wage earners don't face these challenges

@MrsSkylerWhite

Given life expectancy even in the poor areas is still high 70s,“

Sorry, this is just wrong (and way out). Following from Lancashire County Council website:

“The figures below refer to the 2017-19 period unless stated.

Healthy life expectancy (HLE) at birth for males (all ages) in the Lancashire-12 area (60.6 years) is significantly worse than England (63.2 years).
Blackpool (53.7 years) has the lowest male HLE expectancy in England; Blackburn with Darwen (59.6 years) is also one of the lowest. Both are significantly worse than England (63.2 years).
For females, HLE in Lancashire-12 (62.0 years) is significantly worse than England (63.5 years), Blackpool (55.3 years) and Blackburn with Darwen (59.7 years) are also significantly worse”.

Perhaps you don’t live in one of “the poor areas”.

Healthy life expectancy is not the same as life expectancy.

TowerifGiraffes

Healthy life expectancy is not the same as life expectancy.“

Yes, thank you. Another poster pointed that out earlier which I failed to acknowledge.

Can’t help noticing though, as a frequent visitor to both areas because of family connections, that the average 65 year old in Kensington and Chelsea looks considerably more robust than their Blackpool counterpart.

I suspect it’ll be the former and many many people paying NI today will get nothing when they eventually retire

That won't fly. Pay all of this money for supposed "national insurance", have it siphoned off to pay current pensions like a pyramid scheme rather than each person's contributions being invested for them personally to remove cohort/ demographic effects as sensible countries do, and then say "sorry, we spent it all and won't give you anything for those decades of contributions".

That will end with riots.

I think that maybe our expectations of retirement are much higher now than 40 or 50 years ago.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t all receive our pension but I can remember pensioners living very frugally and being poor. Families helped where they could. Thankfully we have moved on from that.

@TowerOfGiraffes

I suspect it’ll be the former and many many people paying NI today will get nothing when they eventually retire

That won't fly. Pay all of this money for supposed "national insurance", have it siphoned off to pay current pensions like a pyramid scheme rather than each person's contributions being invested for them personally to remove cohort/ demographic effects as sensible countries do, and then say "sorry, we spent it all and won't give you anything for those decades of contributions".

That will end with riots.

The pension won't be cancelled, it is just that the amount will be almost worthless. The reality is than pensions have been a pyramid scheme, the vast majority of older workers never made a net contribution, that figure is around 25-30% of current workers and only around 7-9% make a net lifetime contribution. The system has since it's inception relied on population growth and borrowing which was always going to be unsustainable. In countries where pensions are sustainable most people pay a lot more tax, Germany and Scandinavia for example, in this country most people pay far too little tax and expect far too much back in return.

People who are 70+ are going to be far less likely to riot and if they were to do so then far easier to handle.