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!

high five MrsDeVere- you're so right.

Slacksally I work in finance. If I pay nothing my employer will pay 4%, then for every 2% I pay my employer will add an extra 1% up to a max of 8%. So I pay 8 and my employer pays 8. My projected pension at retirement age is less than a quarter of my salary.

One we have sorted out our finances after my redundancy I will clearly have to top it up.

DH pays 11% and his employer pays 6%. He world in it.

yeah TeamLemon- a big big worry of mine is that skilled people just wont' go into the public sector any more once it's made a completely shit job with no benefits whatever and the government demonstrates it feels free to change terms and conditions on a whim. Skilled people will always get jobs but why should the private sector swallow them all up? We need skilled people to educate the people of the country, keep them secure and care for them when they are ill. Without that we become a backward- rather than forward-moving country.

I think I may actually take up smoking. Living to be old is going to be shit. Actually I probably can't afford to smoke.

I don't believe we are ready for an elderly workforce - at 65 not many employers will want you regardless of what the legislation says

Works in IT that should have said. FGS have none if you been listening!! Private sector employers are getting rid of car schemes and other perks too. DH needs a car for his work but they have just got rid of the car scheme.

'Living to be old is going to be shit.'

Oh most definitely for most of us. I used to smoke and drink too much. I'm hoping that will be the cause of my rather early demise.

DH smokes rollies. He gets the baccy for cheap from Eastern European colleagues.

I don't know any care home workers who are public sector workers around here. The care homes are all private. They get shit wages and no benefits.

Plenty of nursing jobs are going private as well. Shite wages and no benefits.

they say taking up smoking late in life actually protects you from alzheimers :-0

timeforabiscuit is right. If you get sacked even in your 40s you're considered 'too old'. We are going to see a huge rise in elderly unemployed people claiming benefits (if indeed there are any left by then!!)

I'm with you all for a drinking smoking early demise- bottoms up

Those posters who have no pension but plan to work til you drop, presumably then should you live to be 100 you'll be relying on the state? Or, if you drop but don't die, you'll be relying on the nhs and social services to look after you. Paid for by our kid and their kids?

I agree, though, that it is unrealistic for anyone now to think that pensions or any other terms and conditions that were offered when we joined cannot/should not be changed.

IME (public sector, good pensions, soon to be less good), the high pension and benefits in some parts of the public sector mean that few people leave, making it hard for people (other than those coming in at entry or very senior levels) to enter, among other problems.

I get really fed up with the whole private v public sector thing. Plays into the hands of government and others who want to bring down the benefits for everyonr.

They might want an elderly workforce if they can use their labour in exchange for healthcare. You could be lying in a hospital bed making cold calls about new windows, a laptop on your bedside cabinet...Have they thought of that? There must be lots of work a bed-bound elderly person could do to support themselves and contribute to the economy or take the weight off other younger, fitter (but also poor) people. Surely if they want to kick disabled people off benefits they have to start looking at the very elderly, too. In the big society who but the rich should be allowed to retire?

I'm actually planning to top myself if I don't die by natural causes, Dozer. And yes, I'm serious. I have no wish to burden my family with myself, no wish to continue in poverty and there won't be any state support left.

Wonder if there're any statistics on proportion of people who actually die suddenly (at any age), how many become unable to work through illness or disability etc.

I bet there are more of the latter. My mum for example, went to work in the nhs one day in her early 40s, then collapsed and has been too unwell to work ever since, was given medical retirement, has small pension and gets incapacity benefit).

I think you're referring to mdowdall alone Dozer? I do have a pension but a very small one cos I changed jobs too often in my life, spent too long in education (had to, to do my job) and made the mistake of having 2 kids and not being able to work full time for a while (I tried, though...).

I want to work until I drop for personal reasons. I dont' think I could stand the boredom of retirement. But I entirely agree that if I drop without dying I would want to be supported by a properly funded NHS and indeed state pension and I support any measures to increase taxation etc in order to do this. As a pessimist though I don't think those things will be around for me (I am 38). This is partly why I just want to drop dead on the job. now where are me fags??

How macabre! But expat, you may not be in a position to do that, eg if you are well one day and not the next, eg stroke, heart attack, hit by bus.

me too expat. I wonder how our children will feel though, if we end up incapacitated and they have to pull the plug on us. I wouldn't want to do that to my mum or dad. And while we are mobile and hopefully grandparents, we won't want to go in advance of getting too ill to manage. State euthanasia is probably going to happen, but it's so open to abuse I shudder to think about it.

expat - My gran is in a care home with public sector workers. But I know this has become much rarer. My local council ran a number of care homes until last year when they were all put out to the private sector.

Trixy - saying your pension will be a quarter of your earnings is meaningless unless you tell us how many years contributions this is based on. Is it 40 years?

Well perhaps older people should offer to work for below the minimum wage?

Phillip Davies thinks that people with disabilities should so why not old folk?

And women

And under 20s

And those without an Oxbridge Education

And those who arnt Tory MPs

Maybe?

The care workers I know are all public sector. We work with children and young people.

Its not just old people who need care.

indeed MrsDeVere...we are commodities after all so when our 'value' goes down we should clearly price ourselves to reflect that

that idiot just shows up the sheer myopia of capitalist market logic.

And also, lesley33, on a quarter of how much?

A quarter of £25k, you might be in trouble. A quarter of £200k, you'll probably be ok.

also the argument that care workers are private sector and badly paid is a reason to expand public sector care and pay a living wage, rather than allow continuing privatisation....

the decline of the living wage will cause incredible social problems in the coming future, and indeed already is.

Just been reading about healthy life expectancy. In women this is 69 in men 67 based on Government's Actuary's Department statistics. On average death is preceeded by 10 years of ill health. So many many people will not be well enough to work much much longer than at present.

bloody hell lesley. So 1 year after state sanctioned retirement, we can expect to get ill!! flippin heck

Actually, the thing I find hardest to swallow is people's attitudes.

Comments like "sitting on your arses" and "sitting with your feet up" towards public sector workers who are just peeved that they are not getting what was essentially promised to them, are rude and uncalled for.

If the changes come, then so be it...in all honesty the Government have you over a barrel. However, why do some people have no insight into why public sector workers may just feel let down and disappointed.

I did not once say that the private sector does not have low paid, labour intensive roles, of course it does and if anyone from the private sector was seeing the terms and conditions of their pension changed - then I would be angry for them too.

Why is it so hard to just have some empathy? Because at the moment we are playing into this Government's hands...to split society, make a "them and us" culture and before you know it, it'll be every man for themselves.