To cry over state pension age speculation rise to 75-81

[feellikeahugefailure]

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/georgeosborne/12179375/Work-till-youre-75-or-even-81-under-Government-review-of-state-pension-age.html

Where has it all gone wrong? My parents could buy a home one one income for 3 times annual wage. Dad retired at 55, mum never needed to work and has been claiming a state pension for over a decade since 60. I do a similar job to my dad.

Where I live the average house price is 13 times my wage. My pension I've been paying into for over 10 years will if I keep paying into it for almost 40 more years give me 2'000 a year if it does averagely and 1'000 if it does poorly, and it probably will do poorly. Then no state pension until I'm about to drop dead. Can't afford a house or to put money away for retirement.

It's all so varied though, i know some people in late 70s who are still working and happy, but others cant even look after themselves. I suppose there would need to be more available sick pay for the elderly for it to work at all, but doubt that will happen. Its a shame we know about the generation that got to have retirement as its not an expected thing really.

barbara so why should the working class people who are not living AS long subsidise the pensions of the wealthy who are living longer?

why not just start means testing and be done with it - no more pensions for people with half a million in the bank

There are not enough children being born now to keep OAPs at a younger age - mid 60s

The government has roughly a day and a half if pension in the pot

The pyramid is turning over, we should have a pyramid with young people at the bottom and then only a few old people at the top. We have instead a few young people at the bottom and mass of old people. This is due to declining birth rate. In 1911 when the pension was introduced birth rat was far higher than now, the two world wars killed off masses as did the 1918 flu pandemic ( it killed more than were lost in the trenches)

People are not dieing young enough or giving birth enough so the model doesn't fit 100 years on.

Poorer people now may not live as long as rich people but they live longer than poor people 30 year ago.

Anyway make up your minds- we're either living longer and cost more
To support in old age or we're not. And if we're not then there is no problem is there? Dead people don't need to work at all

I'd be fucked, working until I'm 80 with a physical disability that's already causing me problems and I'm barely in my 30's.

Fuck, I'd rather die before it gets to that point.

Secretlove is right, who's going to employ people in their seventies? Yes, people live longer now and people in their sixties are generally more youthful than in the past but, come on, how many 80 year olds are going to be fit enough to physically work?

The twatfaces government can't force businesses to take on older employees if they don't want to - and most don't.

The government should just stop pretending they care and be honest with us:

"Actually we don't really want to pay you anything, we just want you to die"

I despise them!

I used to believe I could work in my job till I drop if I simply went very part time. It's now breaking me ...

I for see a lot of ill health retirement TBH. Manual workers with crumbling joints won't be able to work till they are 80. Teachers / nurses/ doctors will fold under the stress of it.

After the marigold hotel thing on to I do wonder how long you could happily live fairly cheaply in somewhere like India on the proceeds of a house ....mind you in India dh could teach kids that want to be taught and not have to hit stupid targets all the time too!

There are so many jobs a person could pysiciay do in to their 80's - nursing, police, teaching, driving and loads more

Nursing, police and teaching when in your 80's - having a laugh aren't you?

I can't imagine why people do these job when they're fully fit and in their 30's

Loads of jobs don't need physical effort.

I have to say I'm taken back by the difference in expectation here and wonder if it is realistic. I think if you've had an upbringing where your parents/ grandparents had a woman who never worked, and a man who went out and did a professional/civil Service job and retried at 60 to do the garden for 20 years they've had it easy.

My parents and grandparents lives were nothing like that and they weren't poor either.

I wonder if there is a bit of rose tinted glasses going on?

Would you want a 75 year old fire fighter? Or a policeman at 80 trying to break down the door of of a bunch of drug dealers in their 20s?

Some will be sacked for not doing the job properly? Others will fail PRP and lose their job? Others may have complaints made about them etc

Young unemployed people will be pleased as that'll free up another job for them but what will those 60/70 year olds actually do? How will they live?

It's hard enough for people in their 50s now to apply for a job-who will hire a sacked 60/70 year old teacher/nurse/copper? Will they have to supplement their heating bills with zero hour contracts whilst rummaging through bins??

hermione NO ONE can live off the government pension. it is either part of the person's pension income (re: they have been able to accrue personal pensions or investment property etc for their retirement) or it is subsidised by state benefits because clearly it cannot be lived on alone.

what this will do is see a ton of older people in the job centre having degrading interviews and work related activity etc and having to prove they've been looking for work full time that week etc.

they will be unemployed as there will be no work for them, during which time they will have to spend all of their life savings, release any pensions/investments that were secured for the future at a loss and become the poorest of the poor meaning THE REST OF THEIR LIVES on benefits. even when they finally do get to retirement age they'll have to be subsidised with housing benefit, council tax benefit etc.

it will turn out to be massively false economy.

you pay pensions by having good working opportunities and decent (re: taxable) wages for the young.

Today's news speculation is that in the budget they might propose a variable retirement age - in some areas such as where my parents are from people die young. No one in my family has lived beyond 79 as far as I know. If we do that then people with my genes (who will die before 80) will lose out if we have moved to areas where people live longer.

I work for myself so will work until I die anyway. My father worked until 77 full time. He died at 79 having put all his money into pensions (great deal that turned out to be!)

I think it means that most people will die while still in work. In parts of glasgow life expectancy for men is 57.

hermione NO ONE can live off the government pension

State pension with pension credits is double the amount people on JSA are told they can live on!

We also need to factor in that the public currently support a government that is ideologically committed to dismantling the NHS.

That will (and already is in places) significantly affect how well these geriatric workers will be.

My parents live off the state pension. Of course it is possible, many people do.

OP, I don't think it's where things have gone wrong tbh - the baby boomers were an anomaly. It was hard for the generations before them and it is/will be hard (in a different way) for those after. It's just we've seen what our parents had and come to expect it.

Dh and I are around 40 and don't expect to retire until we're properly too old to work. We are both in professions we could theoretically carry on in until we drop. I would happily support earlier retirements for those in jobs that genuinely cannot be done with increasing age.

But ageism will have to go in the long term.

My aim is to retire at 60. That's when I will get my work pension (if they don't change it) and my plan is to be mortgage free and have a cushion of savings behind me. It might not work but that's my plan.

I think the original model for pensions was to keep the few who lived past expected age for a few years, not decades of comfortable income from entire swathes of the population.

This is what you get from such an Etonian-heavy gov't.

both the jsa claimant and the pensioner on pension credit are also given housing benefit, etc to survive - my point being no one lives on it alone. incidentally all that is going to happen is people will spend ten years plus at the end of their lives on JSA before getting pensions.

I expect to work until I die!

cleaty then they either own property or they are getting housing benefit. no one can live off of it who doesn't have property and/or other investments.