Who are all these ‘economically inactive’ 50 year olds

[Orangetapemeasure]

The government is trying to encourage 300000 or so ‘economically inactive’ 50+ year olds back to work. Who are these people and what do they do?
I can imagine some people in their 60s deciding to retire early, but I don’t know a single 50 year old who has or could afford to give up work. In fact I know several previously SAHM who are only launching their careers in their mid 40s. I’m mid 40s with a good 15-20 years left to work.
MN please enlighten me.

Being retired doesn't mean you're not paying any tax of course, as lots of people seem to assume. I'm still a higher rate income tax payer. Admittedly I'm paying less than when I was working, but the government is still getting their cut.

Lots will be women spending their time caring for elderly parents/PIL and bringing up their teenage children. If there’s sufficient money coming into the household there’s no reason for them to work as well.
There wasn’t in my case, so I had to work. It wasn’t easy at all.

We retired at 55. No health problems, no redundancy. It was a carefully planned thing. No mortgage. I was a teacher. Couldn't wait to get out. Husband worked for a large German company. Very stressful job.His pension is large, mine tops it up. Having a ball.

Many people who have been made redundant in their 50s, have struggled getting another job again. This applies to two neighbours, and family members.

I used to work in Whitehall. The government decided they wanted to slim Departments down and got rid of the expensive staff (i.e over 50s). I was one of them. I'm now happily living modestly on my small pension. Sunak et al can eff off.

Plus we are all still paying VAT like everyone else.

We are mid 50s and nowhere near retiring

In fact I’ve just got a promotion and big pay rise, upped my hours etc

The only ppl I know that have retired are child free. As my DC get older I have more time to devote to my career, and need the money to pay for uni for them.

Early 50's here and not planning on working again except for short term jobs I enjoy. No mortgage helps.

It's about reframing the narrative so that anybody not working fulltime until their 70s is painted as a lazy, workshy idiot/probably one of those 'had five children by five fathers and is lying about health conditions now they're older to stay living off Welfare'. Next will be only receiving State Pension if deemed too sick to work at all through an assessment performed by one of the companies responsible for PIP/Sickness Benefits - because just shifting the age could affect the most-likely-to-vote demographic, so they have to move the discourse to 'it's not you, it's all those other lazy people that have forced us to do this'.

I reckon they've done some back of an envelope calculations and worked out that now they've hoofed half of the European workforce out of the country and made it so difficult/unappealing for women to have more than 2 children, they need to stop as many people as possible from receiving State Pension for more than 5 years before expiry - well, they don't actually need to, they just don't want to pay for it.

We can expect spin about how ageism is so harmful for people in their 50s and 60s and it's incredibly unfair to put them on the scrapheap when they are more than capable of fulfilling lives in the workplace - with a side order of 'we must address the issues of menopause so that these poor women aren't abandoned/excluded from the workplace'; otherwise known as 'dose 'em up and get them on zero hours Minimum wage/apprenticeship wages working as HCAs, Carers, shop staff, cleaners, bar staff, shift working because they don't have small children to care for, etc'.

I expect to have to work until I drop dead. And by then, that'll be the norm.

No one voluntarily pays shed loads more tax than they have to! I can guarantee that when any person finds out that they have choices about potentially large tax liabilities, they'll explore ways of reducing/avoiding.

Though there's always lots of virtue signalling when it's smaller amounts that don't matter.

You can inherit up to 1m before being liable for IHT, my in-laws fall into this bracket with a house worth more & tbh DH doesn't have a problem with paying IHT.

It's not virtue signalling to acknowledge there is huge economic inequality in this country & that many public sector workers need to be paid more.

A lot of them are caring for grandchildren or elderly parents.

Kids with disabilities so carer since gave up work to move here and get married and have kids. Couldn't go back. So many appointments and needing school hours. By the time they are more independent, my disabilities have kicked in and I am going to appointments for me.

I am chronically sleep deprived by my autistic kids so nothing in the tank to be able to work.

But it's not just about being a taxpayer, it's contributing towards filling the labour shortage.

But age discrimination isn't a given everywhere. One of our recent recruits onto our graduate trainee programme was around 50, but inexperienced in our specialism.

Yes, I forgot grandchildren.

Husband retired at 57, me 61. Social worker and education. We always had a pared back lifestyle and had paid off our mortgage and had savings, also I inherited from my parents. Various workplace pensions between us. Only one child who was self supporting by that stage. For my husband, it was either leave his stressful, undo-able work or have a breakdown. He went back into front-line social work after his marvellous service for disabled people that he was managing was closed by the Tory County Council. I was fed up after much of my work had been unwound and invalidated by the new Academy management so walked too. I had worked since I was 17 with only one small break - my husband was more academic, going to Uni and doing a social work masters at the age of 30. I did my degree through the marvellous Open University whilst working.

Part of my inheritance provided a good house deposit for our daughter. We downshifted and released a bit more equity which we will give to our daughter when she's ready to move to a larger house. We look after our toddler grandson a couple of days a week and my husband volunteers. I garden passionately. No regrets.

The Tory faux austerity has had a catastrophic effect on public services - all that experience and expertise lost in healthcare, education and social work. People have choice and agency, why shouldn't they use it?

I think it’s no coincidence that this has coincided with a crisis in social care and childcare. My contemporaries also spend a lot of their time supporting elderly parents and relatives or providing childcare for their children.

This

Sunak is grotesque. His government have shredded social care provision and are now whining that women (and yes, it’s nearly always women doing the unpaid caring) need to get back to the workplace.

Highly recommend reading “Hags: The Demonisation of Middle Aged Women” by Victoria Smith which has a chapter on this.

Goodness, I changed careers at 50 to one much more fulfilling and more lucrative- I’d have hated to retire then

We get private healthcare through DHs work so for that reason he wants to work as long as possible!

I know a couple of teachers in their 50s who were able to take early retirement. They didn’t want to, though-they were suddenly found to need ‘support’ plans by a new head trying to save money. This happens quite a lot with expensive teachers.

If they were to return to teaching (where there are still long-running huge recruitment and retention problems so they are definitely needed), the problems are no different though. Heads still can’t afford to pay teachers at the top of the pay scale. Do we think many of them would want to return to the job to be paid as a newly qualified teacher? Or maybe it’s jobs like fruit picking that the government have in mind for them….

My parent retired at 50 with full NHS pensions, some police officer friends, my friends fireman husband. All with 30 years service and large pensions. Most are now BTL landlords for top up money but a few have moved to their second homes overseas permanently.

My dad retired at 60 and mum followed a year later in her mid fifties.

They didn't need to work. I was an only child and had moved away for university, the mortgage was paid off and they both got excellent NHS pensions, plus they paid into their private ones too.

They moved to their dream home (bought outright) and have wonderful lives with no Saga holidays in sight

Dad fell runs 3-4 hours a day (he'll be seventy next year) and volunteer coaches the local sports club. Mum is a volunteer and does lots of yoga and Pilates too.

There seem to be a number of factors here:

whether you had children and how many
what age you had your children
if you took a career break with your children
if you have an inheritance
if you have elderly parents that you are helping care for

To add, all my grandparents have passed away so there's no elderly care to worry about. I don't have children (and won't be having any) so they don't have childcare responsibilities either.

They're free to do as they please and worked bloody hard all their lives so I'm very happy for them.

The other issue is younger generations won't be in the same position as todays 50/60s yr old due to wage stagnation, higher housing costs & less generous pensions so the country is less attractive. A relative who is a consultant was saying they are seeing more & more junior staff wanting to emigrate for better QOL.

I will be encouraging my DC to leave the country as it really feels like it’s gone to the dogs.