Retirement age in Denmark set to raise to 70

[MikeRafone]

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg71v533q6o

I hadn’t realised Denmark was presently in line with uk on retirement age and now raising it to 70

and that’s for people born 1970 onwards! I wonder if this will be used for uk to fallow suit?

My mum retired at 60, she died when she was 64, I sometimes get the impression on here that this is what all older people should do! Some of the ageism is horrible and expressed in a way that rightly would not be allowed about any other demographic. People seem to forget that time goes by very fast and they will be older too and much sooner than they think.

How many times, I have not said previous generations had it easy or no hardship. But today's young have been shafted imo. Just say you don't agree @gunsnrosacea it's a lot less long winded 😆

Yup. My OH goes almost weekly to hospital for regular treatments and has got to know many nurses over the 7 years he's been going. It's very common for them to retire in their mid 50s. Then they re-appear again after having taken their tax free lump sum, doing part time "bank" work in slightly different roles! Nice if you can get it!

I read an interesting idea the other day where rather than pensions that every child born is given something like £3000 to invest in a pension. That £3000 will compound over 65 years and become their pension fund. They can also top it up to create a bigger fund. There would then be no state pension across the board. There would be flexibility as to when you take it as long as it came give a minimum annuity for the rest of your life

Anyone who emigrates legally to the UK will be forced to invest a lump sum in a pension and invest a large % their salary to ‘catchup’.

the state pension would simply be a means tested benefit after the age of 70.

obviously the details need to be ironed out but I thought it had some merit

1970 as a cut off would be mental

less than 2 years to plan for retirement!!!!

It’s swings and roundabouts though isn’t it? My DSis. died after claiming her pension for a year. My DF did 12 years in the military and has been claiming his military pension for over 40 years.

I think I’ll be lucky to get 10 years out of mine.

I’m planning on buying a home in my parents country one day. I have no intention on buying one here as it’s so expensive .

I plan to rent it for a very affordable price so someone can take care of it or possibly have family stay there. Then I plan to retire there by 60.

Plans might change but it’s an idea I have. Cost of living is much cheaper there, sunny weather, good food - why not?

Thankful I have no plans to stay here in old age.

I think it’s also the amount of self employed people who are working but aren’t paying taxes surely though?

How much tax are we losing from tax evasion and the lack of tax on wealth.

I work in benefits and regularly see clients who have bene claiming state pension for almos30+ years alongside disability benefits and all the extra pension credit that those get on top. Completely unsustainable.

I agree with all of this.

I would also add that our public sector pension liability is unsustainable, the liabilities cannot be met from future taxation, and the changes made so far are too little, too late. No government of any colour has ever had the stones to tackle this, and the current bunch of dribbling incompetents certainly won't. DB schemes should be scrapped, just like they were in the private sector decades ago. (I write this as someone whose DH has a generous NHS DB pension, not from self-interest).

Compound interest is a wonderful thing. Giving a lump sum to everyone would cost the country a fortune. But what successive governments have been trying to "push" is people investing in pension schemes, from as young an age as possible, hence compulsory workplace pension schemes.

There are lots of illustrative figures around the internet, but some examples starkly show the difference between starting to invest modest sums when you're 21 against starting to invest the same when you're 31 or 41 - the growth in the fund and difference in ultimate projected pensions are mind boggling huge, just because of compound interest or investment growth. Even on modest regular savings, the outcomes are tens if not hundreds of thousand different over 40+ years - double, treble, quadrupled pensions very easily even with modest interest/growth projections.

Save £50 per month when you're 50 is barely worth the effort, but save £50 per month from when you're 21, and increase annually in line with your pay rises (and even more when affordable), and you could literally be rolling in it at retirement, with an annual pension more than your final years' annual wages, from a regular investment that even minimum wage workers would barely notice (the cost of a couple of takeaways per month!).

I agree

In the past, many people started work at 15, worked until 65, died aged 70

Now, many people expect to start work at 25, work until 50, live to 90

This was never going to be financially feasible

Ok I’ll leave you alone but I ask one thing. Please don’t tell young people they’re shafted. It makes it sound there’s no hope for them and they shouldn’t even try.

It's not just some self employed who are in the black economy. Lots of employed people, unemployed, retired, etc are also active in the black economy in areas such as tax evasion, benefit fraud, money laundering, drug dealing, selling counterfeit/duty free goods, "cash in hand" work. You really shouldn't just think it's restricted to a self employed people - most self employed are honest and declare their incomes properly.

In 20 years there won’t be a state pension - I’m calling it now!
I tend to agree. At the very least it will be means tested, so it would probably be scrapped and replaced by some adjusted pension credit system for the poorest of pension aged people.

I've seen mean testing state pension aired in media - sort of run up flag poles and see how it does - so do worry it may happen.

I also thought there was legistation in place that means any UK governemnt can raise state pension to 70 and may do so in coming years.

I think perhaps the bigger problem looming is increased percentage of older people still paying out mortages or rent as housing cost rose past retirment ages- though on flip side saw article today about increasing number of young people inheriting from DGP or gifted from parents and buying outright smaller properties so they have no rent or mortgage payments.

@Badbadbunny That’s a fair point, in the town I come from I’m aware of many “unemployed” people are doing cash in hand work. The list goes on.

Unfortunately, many already feel like that - they don't need someone to tell them (or not). They know what they're earning, their expenses, stupidly high house prices and rents, and they've enough common sense to know things really aren't going to get any better. They're not daft. Simply "not telling them" won't make them think otherwise - they know! There's a massive sense of helplessness and hopelessness amongst the young, both young workers and teenage school/college/Uni students. Many are more up to date with current affairs than adults so they know what's happening and that there's almost certainly worse to come!

This is not a new thing. When my father was left in an NHS hospital having no treatment for a known heart condition, we brought in a private consultant who operated (despite the odds not being great), and gave him an extra eight years of life.

This was in 1993.

would it cost a lot though? 600000 live births per year would be about £2billion per year or is my maths wrong on that? That’s peanuts in the grand scheme of things. Yes it would take 65 years for this change to pay off as we’d be running the old system until these babies reach pensionable age but I thought it was an interesting idea that we basically make everyone responsible for their own retirement and everyone born in this country will have a pension fund. The detail of people joining the country after birth would have to worked out but am sure it would be a surmountable problem

The difference in the amount that people on pension credit get compared to those who've worked and actually paid into the system is tiny now - £2 or £3 a week. When you add in the winter fuel payment that pension credit claimants get but those on state retirement pension don't, they probably get more.

I somewhat resent the fact that MIL, who's only worked about 5 years in her entire life, gets more from the state than I do after 50 years of grafting. She gets shedloads more if you include her housing benefit and 100% council tax reduction.

Even when I retire, I'll still have to pay my council tax in full, and at £150-odd a month, it's my biggest outgoing.

I think it's inevitable, and will result in people investing more in personal pensions to fund an earlier retirement if they wish. I'm 65 and although I am going to a four day week later this year when my pension kicks in, I'm only really doing that to appease my husband and would happily work full time for longer. I know if I gave up work I'd be bouncing off walls and would have to get another job within a few months. I already go to the gym every day and host our kids in their twenties and their partners around Christmas and holidays and it's not like I want to sit in front of the TV letting my brain stagnate any more than I already do, It's only related to state pension and the private pension scheme will adapt to allow whatever flexibility people choose anyway.

“Plenty of older people seem to think they have earned it and paid their contributions...”

This is so true. I regularly have to listen to my mum saying this…..whilst carefully forgetting she didn’t work past the age of her first child at 26!

Apologies I didn’t mean don’t tell them as you said they are aware of the situation. Instead of throwing our hands up and saying ‘they’re shafted’ let’s make sure they understand their options and the impact of their choices. Will it make them any less ‘shafted’. No, but it might help them navigate it.

Ok I’ll leave you alone but I ask one thing. Please don’t tell young people they’re shafted. It makes it sound there’s no hope for them and they shouldn’t even try.

FGS, why do you keep inferring things I haven't said? I don't have a slot on LBC or think I'm John McClane walking around with a sandwich board projecting my opinions to the youths. I work with young people, this is going to blow your mind @gunsnrosacea but some actually feel like this.

Please leave me alone now.

Will it make them any less ‘shafted’. No, but it might help them navigate it.

Brilliant advice 😆