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.

If you are under 30 you can adapt to the new changes - you have time to pay more, if you should be lucky enough to be able to get the kind of work that pays for you to live now in the first place.

Anyone 50+ (and especially women) is completely shafted - anyone 40+ also shafted, though less so. The state pension was always going to be there for them. Until it wasn't.

Also with Local Authorities, unlike private pensions, paying in from a young age has no benefit. It is the number of years that count.

Our pensions are also crap (self employed so no employer contribution) but its our responsibility to make sure we have enough money for when we retire.

Yep, if you are like me, this will completely shaft you. I wonder if MPs will be expected to work until 81 before they get their pensions ( I already know the answer to this one).

redhat - No it is not. The point of the welfare state is to help those who need it. We do not live in a society where everyone is totally on their own.

Seriously do not pay into a pension scheme and instead put some money aside for Digitas.

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

My H drives a double decker in the Capital of Scotland.

10 hour shifts, few breaks. Commutes 50m each way to work.

He is 50. already having severe bladder probs due to lack of toilet breaks over a 15 year employement. Chest pains, gastric issues.

He drives up and down an often gridlocked road for 8-10 hours a day.
Tourists step out in front of the (30Tonne) Bus.
People fall ill on the bus, vomit, start fights, are elderly and confused.

He needs v sharp reflexes and very good eyesight to judge safe driving in heavy traffic for extended periods. Plus he needs the common sense and resilience to deal with all the 'non-driving' issues he faces daily.

Would you want that to be YOUR 78/80 yr old Bus/Train/Cab/Plane driver???

If I have to work into my 70's (and I'm physically able to) that's what I'll do.

My deep concern is that no-one will employ me. Of the very few businesses who will consider employing people over 50 (never mind 70) imagine how many old people are going to be applying for every vacancy?

What I'm afraid of is being 'unemployed' instead of 'retired' - but that's what will probably happen. I've never wanted to claim JSA and I don't want to have to do it when I'm in my 60's and 70's. It's going to make me feel shit.

If the government is going to do this they need to drastically tighten up the rules around ageism.

Anyone got a job for my 80 yr old dad?
He has heart problems, is housebound and falls all the time. Anyone? Thought not

I agree that this government are unfair keep moving the goalposts but it's not news about the state pension being enough to barely live on.
That's why we came up with a plan to retire early over 25 years ago. Hopefully mid 50's through savings, investments and pensions. State pension will be a bonus.
We're not rich and not always earned loads. If you're in your 20/30's do something asap.

I cannot agree with you there cleaty yes the welfare state is there to help those who need it. Of course. But it is still my responsibility fundamentally to ensure that I have enough money to live during my retirement.

If I don't take on that responsibility then I have no right complaining that my standard of living during retirement is not high enough. I am not entitled to leisure time at the expense of the taxpayer.

If everyone took your view that they didn't need to provide for their own retirement then either the country would be completely screwed or else every would be living on the bare minimum.

I have done something. If I had the state pension and my employer pension at a reasonable age, I would be fine.

But tying Local Government pensions to state pension age, given most Local Authority employees are not well paid, was a big kick in the teeth. It means it makes no sense for young people to pay into a Local Government pension.

All the unemployable old folk will have plenty of spare time to collaborate campaign and raise hell so the powers that be will have to listen to them

Cleaty your posts are completely contradictory. I was responding to your previous post where you said I was wrong and it's not our responsibility to ensure we have enough money to live during retirement. You said "no its not" and said that was the point of the welfare state.

Anyway I have to go now and earn some money so that I can try to top up my crappy pension.

I can imagine working in my late 60s/early 70s, but the type of job I have doesn't discriminate (much) against older employees, and lends itself to going part time etc.

I think I also know a lot of people who are in late 60s /early 70s who would be very capable of working. More who would be than wouldn't be IYSWIM

But 80s is really pushing it! I can't see how that would work at all unless we work out ways to massively slow down the ageing of the body and the mind.

It's not working for a bit longer that I mind, but the uncertainty of the pension situation even given that we will be working for longer. I can see that the figures just don't stack up for my generation and it is quite frightening.

I am not sure how many people realise how tired you get as you age.

To the pp asking why the UK is the only country with this problem - it isn't. Actually, we're in a much better position than many other countries as our birth rate isn't that low, and we have a reasonable level of immigration. There's an interesting analysis from Adair Turner published by the IMF - which incidentally has the wonderful sentence: "immigrants being, to the pension system designer, functionally equivalent to new citizens who are born, on average, in their mid-20s."

His comment re the UK: "If the combined fertility plus immigration rate is equivalent to a fertility rate close to or greater than 2.0, the affordability problems of PAYG pension systems are easily manageable. This is clearly the case in the United Kingdom"

Other countries are much worse off than us demographically - IMO its inequality and housing costs that are the killer in the UK

It's utterly unrealistic- one in 14 of the over 65's has dementia. By aged 85, between 25 and 50% of people have dementia! Soon we'll be told it's perfectly possible for

Ageing life isn't all one lovely swansong where you gently decline, going downhill slightly bit by bit but essentially exactly the same only with a tiny bit less energy. Once you get a serious chronic health condition or disability or cancer or have a heart condition, which happens to an awful lot of people, life changes dramatically. My FIL has worked til he was 70 very ably, and was very much your active older person: within one year he has two serious health conditions diagnosed and is now pretty much bedridden.

Someone laughed and said that AIBU would explode if everyone had to take in their parents and care for them like in the past. I agree it would be awful! But it will not be possible financially to keep everyone going in terms of social and medical care in their own homes (nice big houses) til they are in their nineties, it's too expensive.

As for pottering about doing a little job, someone else mentioned their MIL working in a gift shop/FIl working as a gardener- that's what you do when you have paid off your mortgage and have some savings, that's not the type of job that could deliver a rental home and bills in the current financial climate. My parents have done incredibly well out of the boomer generation, and live very well off quite small pensions- but that's because they paid off their mortgages and only need living expenses. For the 40% who are now renting, this won't be an option.

I am quite pessimistic, because it all seems built on sand.

That's one reason why people used to have large families, to have lots of children so the chances are some would survive and look after them in old age. We do appear to be going backwards.

I'm not going to comment on the 'work hard and you will be rewarded' crap some posters are coming out with. I work much much harder doing longer hours for a lesser salary (% increase over last 5 years miniscule) than my parents earned doing a similar job- they say this themselves. They have a lovely big owned house, paid off mortgage, a salary linked final pension, and holidays and a nice life (cheap but not worrying)- I don't have one of these things!

I hope some of us peasants may revolt when realising that we're paying vast sums in NI and tax in order to pay the pensions of those bowing out at 55/60, when we ourselves are going to get nowt. I can't say I'll be too thrilled if my next-door-neighbour is sunning himself in a deckchair on big pension whilst I am staring down the barrel of another 20 years of work.

It's like contributing to people's wedding presents year after year and then when it's your turn everyone turns round and says, "Sorry, bit broke now, can't return the favour."

My first sentence should read:

It's utterly unrealistic- one in 14 of the over 65's has dementia. By aged 85, between 25 and 50% of people have dementia! Soon we'll be told it's perfectly possible for people in the early stages of dementia to do office tasks and work from home...(which may be true if they continue their existing work very slowly, but not at the level needed to deliver a viable financial income!)

Is anyone actually saying "work hard and you will be rewarded"? I don't think anyone is. There are a fair few people though saying it is what it is, there's no magic wand and so plan accordingly if you want more than the bare minimum to live on.

Someone or other said that for the first ten years of retirement you wish you were 20 and for the next ten years you wish you were dead...

"As for pottering about doing a little job, someone else mentioned their MIL working in a gift shop/FIl working as a gardener- that's what you do when you have paid off your mortgage and have some savings, that's not the type of job that could deliver a rental home and bills in the current financial climate."
Plenty of people do those jobs all their working lives!

redhat but often their plans include things like increasing savings and paying off the morgage early or putting more into a pension. I can't do any of those things as due to cost of living increases and my huge rental bill, I really don't have money to save or to put into a pension (I get one with work) and I wouldn't get a mortgage now even though I'm a professional.

I am planning, but it's more of a 'where could I live if desperate' type of planning.

I feel sorry for people who did plan and paid into their pensions which were raided by Labour, that must be pretty annoying as well.

I'm trying to point out that a lot of this is luck- who gets the nasty disease, who gets dementia, who buys in the house market before the window closes, and to imagine that effort and planning can overcome that is short-sighted. However, you are completely right, you do have to plan the best you can, given we know that progress isn't always linear, and remain flexible (e.g. get over the fact everyone probably can't have their own 3/4 bed house each into old age).

Plenty of people do those jobs all their working lives! yes, people do NMW jobs all their working lives topped up by a huge amount of tax credits or housing benefit or other ages. These are not living wages in and of themselves. If you have children you get child tax credits. If you don't and are older, you couldn't get a living wage out of these jobs without a lot of state support which may be cut and not forthcoming in the future.

Plan as much as you like, nobody can ever be sure they've got it right. We can't rely on the world economy growing forever and immigration keeping up the young population forever - there are the little issues of space, resources and stability. You might think you've been oh so clever for years and then find your pension investments are worthless when you need them, or that a revolution sweeps everything you saved for away.

And on that depressing note - anyone for ? I think it's time for a little break!