In thinking that I may never be allowed to retire.........

[whymumwhymum]

Have worked in public sector for nearly 20 years now and just saw in the news today that they are planning on keeping the pensions for my age group and under back until we are 66 ffs.

That was not what I signed up for when I decided to pay into the scheme!

Thats nearly another 30 years and tbh I don't think i'll survive in this job that long, and thats not taking into account that by the time I'm 50 or older they will probably have pushed the age back further.

I don't feel particularly ' lucky' to be a public sector worker, i worked and studied damn hard for years to get my now reasonably (not by any means highly) paid job. I will never ever get a bonus even if i do twice the 'reasonable' work, will also never get overtime payments. I'll never have a company car or private health care or any other perks.

Many's the night I've lain awake worrying about the people i get paid to look after .

The pension was the one thing that made it 'wothwhile' long term and i am losing faith that I will ever see it, in payments alone i calculat I will have paid in somehwre in the region of 100k over a working life of 45 years not accounting for inplation. Should have just saved the money or better still blown it on stuff I could actually enjoy before i'm six feet under!

SlackSally - all the changes to public sector pensions you mention above are to reduce the burden of public sector pensions to the general tax payer and to put more of that burden on those who actually benefit (ie public sector workers). Are you saying you think that is unfair? What is the alternative?

I completely agree with Fenouille.

I know someone who's retired and beyond fit, age 59. Laughing away at how she's going to get free travel in a few months and enjoy 30-odd years or so of travelling and swanning around.

Think she's in for a rude shock, tbh, because that's going to go down the swanny even for her, methinks, with the way things are going.

I'm not prepared to pay higher taxes for fit boomers to travel around, either, whilst my own children freeze in the dark and eat whatever's cheapest.

In the US, they've already increased the retirement age. For everyone. No big strikes, not outrage. It's currently 66 for those born between 1943-1954, and the government can and will increase that as life expectancies rise. The state pension was created in 1935, when people didn't live as long.

You live longer, you work longer. Duh. You have find something else to do if/when you can't do whatever your old job was. Many have multiple careers in their working lives. The standard working week is longer. Attitudes have had to change. It's well accepted for people in their 30s, 40s and 50s to completely change careers. There are no age limitations on apprenticeships.

It's how things go in capitalism. Few get rich, most get screwed.

lesley33 - for the 5 millionth time of mentioning, the reason people are getting less than they thought is because stock markets across the world have shifted dramatically in the last three years. Pensions are linked directly to stock market growth. The government has no control over stock markets. End of.

'I think it is changes to existing schemes that mean people get much less than they were told they would get, that is the problem.'

But what to do? If the money's not there, it's not there. You can't get blood out of a stone.

And personally, as a low-paid private sector wage-earning family, I'm not willing to pay higher taxes to fund the gap. We're barely hanging on here as it is.

Yes skacksally I would like to address the rest of your post. The private sector which creates the wealth that pays for your pensions has already made changes that increase employee contributions for less pension and higher retirement ages.

Why exactly do you think the public sector should be exempt from that?

The fact is that people are living longer and there is less money to go round so there have to be changes.

Mdowdall.

I realise you probably think I'm an idiot, but I'm honestly not.

OF COURSE I know the reasoning behind the changes. As I've made abundantly clear several times, it is the LEVEL of change that I object to.

What I find hilarious about all this is that public sector workers - who, as a general rule are left wing and, supposedly, all about compassion and caring for others - well, when it comes down to it they dont actually give a flying fuck about anybody else...as long as they get their pensions.

B&q will save us all. When everyone is too old, knackered, burnt out to continue in their demanding jobs we can all go and work there with the other oaps.

I would also like to know what the harshest critics do for work, and how much they contribute to their pensions.

I am self employed, late 30s, dont have a pension, never have. I enjoy my work and - health permitting - am happy to work till I drop.

Would you be willing to be any more specific?

DH is a hotel employee/mini-bus driver.

I'm self-employed. Retraining to go back and be a legal secretary come September on top of my work.

I'm not happy to work till I drop, but that's how it's going to be. I may as well get used to the idea and train up for something I can do largely sitting down because things are not going to get any better for any of us.

I'm 40.

DH is 33. A smoker. He reckons he'll drop dead long before he reaches 70.

I'm hoping the same for myself, tbh.

McDowall - Yes the stock market has been in decline and that has a direct affect on pension funds. But my point was that I think many Local Government Pension Schemes have been mismanaged.

When I started work in the 80's, employees and employers both paid 6% contribution into the pension scheme. As the economy boomed, most Local Authorities reduced this to 1 or 2% employers contributions and then finally to nothing.

I remember people at the time questioning the wisdom of this but they were ignored. A very small number of Local Authorities did not do this. Their pension schemes are in suplus, by a very wide margin.

If Local Government pension schemes had been properly managed, they would be in a very healthy position now.

Of course it may still have mean't that there would have to be some changes,but the starting position would have been much more positive.

Sorry, SlackSally. Yes, I advise brands on their online PR/social media strategies.

I think that the lower average private sector wage shows what utterly disgraceful conditions most workers in this country are having to put up with. Minimum wage being the order of the day for so many jobs, while the bosses up the line roll in money.

however. No one has pointed out that the public sector is probably disproportionately staffed by skilled workers- doctors, nurses, teachers and lecturers all have to train for years to get to employable level. There are hardly public sector cafes, hotels, factories etc employing your average unskilled worker. Even the cleaning of hosptials etc is now contracted out to low-paying private companies who mostly seem to employ immigrant labour which will put up with the awful pay they offer.

Senior manager salaries in the NHS and elsewhere (for example Vice Chancellor salaries at university level) are outrageous. Our ex university vice chancellor awarded herself £240k last year (while supervising the closure of lots of departments). It's repulsive.

however the rhetoric of the anti-public sector ranters is misinformed nonsense. 'Sitting on your arses' etc. It's just lazy thinking to characterise an entire sector like this. Public sector workers work their proverbial arses off, usually serving the public, who strangely enough still expect public services and are rightly demanding about them. Save your jealousy for the bosses and bankers who really have it nice and easy in this country.

I personally want to work until I drop. I can't imagine not working.. And I'll do so for the public sector, or what's left of it, until I die or become physically unable to work. That doesn't mean the government are entitled to change my already fairly paltry pay and conditions.

That being said, if the universities create redundancies I'll probably have to retrain in the dull (and easier) stuff I previously did- tax for banks (eurgh) or maybe private legal practice in the field I currently research in- and earn a sight more doing it. But they'll have to sack me first.

And while some people retire at 60 in very good health, many don't. Statistically those who are better off are much more likely to be healthy at 60 than their poorer contemporaries. And ironically,better off people are much more likely to have jobs they can carry on doing until they are older.

It is a very different scenario doing a desk job to doing one that requires some physical stamina such as cleaners, care assistants, etc. What happens to these people?

lesley33 - I agree with you. I think a big problem was that many LAs bought into labour's talk of the days of boom and bust being over and assumed the boom would last forever - hence no need to worry about pension pots.

Mdowdall.

That's a very specific job!

Do you not pay into a private pension because you feel you can't afford to, or because you do not think it's a worthwhile investment. And if you could get a job, let's say, in the public sector, with a pension contributed to by your employer, would you do so?

anyone with any sense could see the boom was manufactured bollocks. A massive housing bubble leading to overinvestment in property was bound to crack as said property became unaffordable to all but the very rich.

It's the baby boomers who have shafted us all, god damn em...they are the main property and business owners who will receive state pensions until they drop (I doubt we'll even have that, when we're old...we'll have to return to throwing ourselves on the mercy of relatives and charities) and apparently 1 in 7 people retiring right now have a second home. Probably bought on the back of their horribly overvalued first one which they bought for pennies in 1969!!

woah mrdowdall no pension at all?? That's a very risky strategy.

i understand the work til you drop thing, my sentiments exactly :D however what if you get ill, or just less mobile. Surely you need some sort of safety net?

I know how hard people work is a different argument. I no longer work in the public sector, but when I did I found things varied considerably.

1. So those doing most front line jobs often had to work very hard. Care assistants, play workers, nursery nurses,social workers, etc are often very over worked.

1. Bureaucracy/policy/strategy jobs. In these jobs your work pace isn't set by the amount of customers as it is for care assistants or play workers. Some of these people worked very hard and some didn't. And some worked very hard doing nonsense things demanded by Central Govt e.g. statistics, paperwork, etc that is really a waste of time.

FFS we dont all get fucking pensions Mdowdall

I have to buy my own equipment and use my own car.

I cant do my job without at car, I wouldnt have got my job without my car. So no choice but to use it and maintain it myself.

We are being forced into a pay cut plus a cut in grade plus no cost of living rise this year and an agreement that we may never get one again.

If I stay in this job for 20 years I could be earning the same then as I do now.

We are being told that if we do not sign the new contracts we will get the sack.

There are workers in my team that only hit a living wage because they work unsocial hours and work overtime . There will be no more unsocial hours payments or overtime.

I dont mean highflyers. I mean people on minimum wage. Caring for people and cleaning up other people's messes.

But that is something that people prefer to ignore because imagining all public sector workers sit behind a desk and laugh at the poor private sector workers slaving away is so much more fun innit?

lesley I think most jobs vary in that. Some people are talented at getting away with doing eff all.

I remember a colleague in the private sector a decade or 2 ago whose motto was 'can I leave this with you, x?' (Usually said to an overobliging female staff member...) he was notorious for it.

Others seemed to work v hard but were so incredibly incompetent it would frankly have been better if they'd not bothered. Some of these people were inexplicably well paid.

To be honest, I hope dh does work until he drops. As a teacher, we'll get 3x annual salary as a death in service payment. This will be worth a lot more than his pension will be by the time he reaches 68.

This "perk" is no longer offered to teachers coming into the profession. Along with pay freezes, increased pension contributions + a shorter retirement, and new-fangled Govt. initiatives every 10 minutes, it is no wonder the profession is struggling to recruit high quality entrants.