To think most of us will work to death?

[Fifi0000]

I was thinking retirement age is rising again. I'm now 30 my grandparents are late 80s and retired before I was born. They aren't wealthy , They have only started really slowing down health wise. I was thinking about this and very few of us will get a 30 year retirement. If the retirement age rises to 68 I'm dreading what it will be when I reach that age and my daughter. I do have an ok pension pot but I think the expectation will be very short retirements in poor health basically work until you drop.

I cant see it but its also why I did a gap year and travelled so much when young. I thought I'd rather do it this way round whilst I'm young, healthy and fairly responsibility free.

That said...circumstances can definitely change.

@Sarahconnor1 I just look again.
It says 40 years to pay before 2062 (I’ll be 68) 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️

lI can't see free prescriptions for 60 yrs old lasting much longer or tbh a functioning "free" Nhs

The pension website won't help then, it's bloody awful. 🤣

It's actually that demographically we are becoming more and more of an upside down triangle.

a huge issue that no gov wants to address & plan for

Re older people and computers - it gets harder to learn new computer programs and systems quickly the older you get. If they want people to work into their 70s allowances will need to be made for that. I was 58 when I quit on a voluntary early exit package and I was already starting to find things difficult on that front. Perfectly capable on the systems I already knew but they were constantly introducing new ones!

My mum is mid 70's and couldn't possibly work. The thought of working for another 17 years fills me with dred.

The joke is, many companies can't afford to keep the older employees on and have forced early retirement onto staff.

Quite high flying people are facing the prospect of quite menial work after working in offices, simply because their qualifications, competencies and experience are out of date and they've spent too long out of the workforce

Yanbu x

Indeed!

I absolutely agree that ALL Governments have failed to address this, and it should be a cross-party discussion so no single party has to take the blame - but life expectancy has increased and pension age was never meant to fund decades of people enjoying life. Again accepting the many shortfalls, healthcare has increased.

Pension age was seen as the end of the useful working life for people who had mostly been entirely ground down by manual work. This is now not the case on a country-wide basis (again, I accept that in some industries it still may be, but widely it is not the case).

Have also just posted on another thread that while I would love it if women got their pensions 7 years earlier than men, it feels a very difficult argument when we are wanting equality in other areas.

Not many of the UK population are going to support the tax increases that would be necessary to fund the support that people would LIKE rather than NEED.

but life expectancy has increased

but healthy life expectancy has stagnated

I can take my pensions at 68 but the gov website says this might go up to 69 before I get there. My mum passed away in January aged 70 and 6 months. So yeah, I'm not expecting a long retirement. She had only just retired herself. Very sad state of affairs.

I don’t plan on living beyond retirement age, I won’t be able to afford to. I have no private pension as I’ve had chronic health problems my whole adult life and so when I have worked, it has been part time. One way or another I will be working until I die.

My GP's were in ok health, retired at 60/65 (as were the retirement ages then) and spent around 6/7 years travelling. By early 70's they were done. They still were fine to do day to day things but they weren't interested in big trips. They were both feeling their age. So that's made me now do all my travelling prior to retirement, given I won't be able to retire until 67. I'm a temp and the pension I was enrolled into recently (which I immediately opted out of) wanted nearly 4k a year from my wages (for a not great payout as I have no prior pension to speak of). So I'm keeping the cash and use it to enjoy myself now. I'll manage on state pension.

Contrary to popular opinion, it is not always better to have a small pension rather than none, as it can put you above the threshold for extras that those with just state pension get. Like pension credit, council tax reduction etc. At my age, close to mid 50s, it would be counter productive.

But people who retire on their 50 have nothing to do with the pension age

Sone people are rich enough to not work
They may well be paying tax on the income they take from their investments

I’m not even 40 and I’ve just left nursing, I have arthritis in both thumb joints from bandaging, I have Sciatica from standing for long periods, a recurring shoulder injury from rolling obese patients, and during assaults I’ve sustained broken ribs and fractured jaw bone. I also have anxiety and depression due to bullying and harassment in the nhs. I’ve no idea how long I will manage to work for but can’t imagine going on till 70.

I don't want to wait till 69/70 for my pension. It also means I will pay 50 years of NI contributions. It's deeply unfair that todays working pensioners don't pay NI but the generations behind will be paying for many more years.

I begrudge paying into my pension because I genuinely don't think I'll get to cash it in. But at the same time, it's a defined benefit one so opting out would be crazy just in case I do outline whatever the retirement age is by the time I reach it.

They may well be paying tax on the income they take from their investments

which is generally far less than the equivalent in income, another issue.

Funny how this always seems to get overlooked in these discussions.

Aren't many public sector pensions linked to state age though?

Those people on the cruises didn't have any paid childcare, possibly no mat leave, very little sick pay, were much less likely to access health care when young and only went to the GP when really ill etc etc. That's not a prid pro quo but it's important to remember that not all older people have had a fun-filled easy time on someone else's dollar.

People live longer now - they rarely drop dead two years after retiring - which they used to do. It's good to work - we should all be contributing in whatever way we can. And we should be preparing for when we can't rather than expecting someone else to do it.

Setting up older people against younger people doesn't help us as a society though. And none of knows what's in store.

Early retirement is usually an option for most final salary schemes, albeit the benefits are reduced accordingly. At the moment the minimum retirement age is 55. It will be increasing to 57 from April 2028.

But if they are happy with what they have why should they work to pay more?

The problem with not enough tax revenue would be better fixed by addressing inheritance tax, mega rich profiteering by companies , the ultra rich

But someone who has saved enough to live on 15k a year in their 50 and 60 is somehow the root of all evil

But it's not just down to personal responsibility is it. Pension schemes have all been downgraded, housing is more expensive and mortgage terms are longer, theres less social housing etc etc. I don't begrudge anyone doing what's right for them but let's not pretend that a lot of it isn't luck. I can be as responsible as I like, my pension terms are still worse.