To think the standard of living for retired people had to change

[downdowndowndowndown]

I'm a millennial. I will retire in my seventies. Many in my age group will be still paying their mortgage off well into their sixties. Many will never be able to buy. This is not a moan about that.

My mums generation were able to buy cheaper houses in the eighties. Some have also inherited well (houses which their parents owned and didn't have to sell to pay for care, which had risen in price to above a million). They had better pension plans. Some were able to go to university for free and their degrees actually meant something in the workplace: They often paid off their mortgages in their forties. I see a lot of my parents relatives have retired early and have very enviable lives.

Two uncles have retired in their early sixties. They are both in good help. They spend their days on many holidays, eating out multiple times per week, going to garden centres, renovating their beautiful houses, helping children financially and with childcare. They will have presumably worked out their finances and could afford to continue to live like this for the rest of their lives! Possibly thirty more years!

I think they are possibly going to be unique in their quality of life. We will never have that and I don't see my children's generation having things any earlier.

In essence the generation before me were mostly fortunate, unless personal situations changed their financial situation or they lost their homes during the nineties interest rises. Retirements and pensions were never designed to support people for three decades and that things had to change hence raising the retirement age and making people pay more towards their care.

Did you go to university? Perhaps you can retire when you’ve worked for 45 /50 years too, similar to the pensioners you’re talking about now. Why are you whinging about working to 70? Working age will have to increase as life expectancy increases. When the pension age was 65 for men only a very small percentage were expected to actually live long enough to receive it. Leave the older generation alone.

Well if you CBA I definitely can’t. Recollections might vary but I think you have exaggerated. Am off to bed now…another 12 hour shift for me 😊

I’ll be encouraging them to vote to limit free NHS care to under 70s only**

Nearly thirty years ago my 70-year-old mother was dying of cancer and my cousin who is a doctor had to fly back from India to make sure she was getting the right treatment as the government of the day had been talking about withholding treatment from people over 70. We were lucky in that we had someone who could check, otherwise we would have been left with the doubt.

Anyone who puts figures above people's lives is a sociopath at least.

Good point.

Exactly!

Do wise up and educate yourself on how things really are!

Don’t feel sad for me. I’m a 70s child hobbled by a comprehensive education, who started work in the “90s recession, watched Labour destroy private sector pensions, lumber the NHS and Schools with PFI, bureaucracy and KPIs while throwing money around like confetti in the late ‘90s until they ran out. At which point they moved into illegal wars as a distraction.

But, despite that I’ve made sufficient provision for myself such that I can retire in my early 50s (though the OP seems to think this shouldn’t be possible) so I dont need your sympathy, thanks anyway. I’d appreciate some sympathy for the fact that Blair’s NHS killed my husband though. Was Maggie perfect, no. Was she well meaning? Yes. Was Bliar perfect, no. Was he self centred? Yes.

Most of us parents are putting themselves out there and making sacrifices daily to ensure that our YP have the best start in life that they can have!

So many out of touch commentators who don't have a clue what parents actually do!!!!

I don't know why it needed to change.

I think it sounds quite nice : work hard when you can and have a decent old age built on the fruits of your labour.

Granted not everyone got it, but they should have done. And they should in the future. That's what we want to be agitating for. Why the fuck would you agitate for less?

Biggest issue in Uk is house ownership - so many other countries are focussed on rent only angel’s is moving more towards sharing and co owning then sole ownership and usage. Not sure if it’s a good thing but different way of living

We have no inheritance from parents who passed with v little as they had very little despite working all their lives to die in their 50s and 60s and never got to enjoy living their ‘good life at retirement’.

We don’t have huge pension plans or retirement savings ourselves, but do try to have fun and enjoy life as well as creating memories with kids, rather than saving it all for a retirement which we may not live to see

Actually I think the biggest issues are that we're a declining power with an ageing population. Other countries are coming up harder, smarter and faster than us with a completely different demographic spread. The average age of a UK citizen is now comfortably over 40. In many African and South American countries the average citizen is a teenager. A young, fit, strong person who has four decades of useful working life ahead of them.

Europe as a whole is facing this problem as is USA and Canada but in the UK we are kind of double fucked due to Brexit. Other big economies will probably have a kind of gentle decline as China and the other BRICS trade their hard assets including housing, but we're out on our own. It's not a good place to be.

Agree.

Hope the Brexiters are pleased with themselves.

Immigrants.

For fuck's sake, there is zero shortage of human beings on this poor burning planet. Get real.

@Roundandroundandroundsound 'So now people are saying that young people shouldn't have families either? It just keeps getting better'

I don't think anyone is saying don't have families, just be mindful of costs.

My parents had five children that they couldn't afford. I have one child that I can provide properly for. If I was wealthier I might have had two, but I wasn't willing to impose the poverty that I experienced, on my children. That's just compassionate common sense, regardless of which generation you were born in to.

Immigrants doing what? Providing care for elderly people and working in the cafés they visit? You think people will move across countries, across continents, for that, on the promise of £10.47 an hour?

I honestly think that people don't realise just how fucked we are in the UK. The entire country is middle aged and a good proportion of us are very elderly indeed. We spunked our oil fields profits on tax cuts way back in the 70s and the only real asset we have is a shrinking and increasingly decrepit housing stock.

The Chinese and Russians will soon tire of our fiddly archaic land laws and our frankly poor quality housing and turn their attention elsewhere. When that happens you'll be wishing with all your might for their bent dollars to be artificially inflating our housing market once more.

My point is that your family would have been seen as better than ordinary with their jobs - certainly in the community I grew up in. That's a white collar job.

There is the other side of a young population though - while 11 million African youth enter the job market each year, it only generates 3.7 million jobs annually. Problems for them too. Masses in informal work and not rewarding.

You may well have been there - but you weren't the one worrying about paying the bills, and working to do so.

Talk about playing the victim! How about you grow up and make your own amazing future, instead of whining that someone else isn't providing it for you.

I don't think anyone is saying don't have families, just be mindful of costs.

And the statistics are saying that’s some are doing exactly that…

Working age will have to increase as life expectancy increases

@ConsuelaHammock the point is life expectancy is not increasing nor has healthy life expectancy so explain why working age should increase?

@Alatron exactly that.

You had a baby at 56?

I’m not whining, I have inherited lots and will inherit lots more in the future. Live in a massive house valued at nearly a million mortgage free. I’m just seeing that most of the young people who can afford to buy do so with family money. It hardly encourages a strong work ethic in our young when those without an inheritance feel there’s no chance of them reaching home ownership no matter how hard they work.

House prices need to plunge in this country if our economy is to survive. High housing costs affects population growth but also the amount people can afford to pay in taxes. In much of Western Europe the basic rate of tax is 10% higher than here. They have far better public services too. Anyone here want to pay more basic rate tax? No, cause everything we earn goes on housing.

No wonder the country is screwed. So many old people who clearly don't care about future generations at all. As long as they're ok who cares what comes afterwards.
Burn the planet, vote Brexit, spend the money, accuse the younger generation of being lazy feckless avocado eating lyers who should just work hatder when they point it out.
No I'm sure not all older people are like that, but there are about 400 ror so replies like it on this thread.

House prices need to plunge in this country if our economy is to survive. High housing costs affects population growth but also the amount people can afford to pay in taxes. In much of Western Europe the basic rate of tax is 10% higher than here. They have far better public services too. Anyone here want to pay more basic rate tax? No, cause everything we earn goes on housing.

Housing became the economy & you are correct that high housing costs are what’s stifling it.