To think increasing pension age isn’t going to add up?

[Tiredandconfused23]

I was reading a few recent studies about the employment situation for over 50s, basically confirming how this age group struggles to return to work, is more likely to be laid off and/or forced into early retirement and how a far higher proportion are in poverty and/or insecure employment than other age groups. And how, despite years of pushback against age bias, it’s only increased in recent years.

If we accept this, I can’t help feeling the idea that increasing the pension age so we work longer, thus save money on benefits, isn’t going to add up. Many people in their fifties would happily carry on working - the issue is many employers may not want us. You can’t keep working if there’s no job to work at.

AIBU to think we may soon be facing a load of older people on benefits, often through no fault of trying, rather than claiming a pension? Would this be seen as still more favourable by the Government?

They are also forced out as they are expensive.

Sounds good, getting paid to exercise!!

You will end up as a self-employed tutor and/or teaching older children/young adults in the badly funded further sector who need to get an English qualification.

At school we had one teacher in his mid-60s. He came back as supply only to teach specific classes e.g. the classes who wouldn't give him shit as they needed to pass in the subject he taught. He didn't do more than a year though.

I also had good teachers who were younger who unfortunately didn't managed to live long after retirement.

Probably true. Beveridge was in favour of universal benefit so that those who needed it less would buy in to the idea of paying for it for those needed it more.

“Means testing is offered 'only on terms which make men unwilling to have recourse to it', and they 'penalise what people have come to regard as the duty and pleasure of thrift, of putting pennies away for a rainy day'”.

I’ve always thought it would be good way to stop the moaning of the sainted taxpayer but I suppose the contributions in vs benefits out argument will always win out.

As a group, no Boomers are not net contributors. Some are, obviously, my husband being one of them (and me, as a Gen X). But as a group, no. Figures from LSE. Probably also buried in ONS too, if you care to look.

https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/long-reads/whats-happening-life-expectancy-england

The fall in life expectancy in England resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic was unprecedented in recent decades, and life expectancy has not yet recovered to pre-pandemic levels.
Future improvements in life expectancy depend on many factors. However, the outlook for England is not promising given the deterioration in population health. The poor health of children, the huge and growing backlog of unmet health care needs (pre-dating the pandemic but exacerbated by it), the almost 3 million – and rising – working-age adults unable to work because of long-term sickness, the persistent constraints on NHS capacityand widening health inequalities illustrate the scale of the challenges that need to be addressed. Added to these are the unpredictable risks of, for example, periodic resurgences in Covid-19, flu or other viral infections, and extreme climate change events such as the heatwaves in 2022.
Life expectancy in the UK compared poorly with most comparator countries before the Covid-19 pandemic; higher excess mortality during the pandemic has resulted in the UK’s further downward slide in international life expectancy tables, with female life expectancy now the lowest among comparator countries (with the exception of the US). Meaningful long-term gains in reducing health inequalities and improving population health and the UK’s life expectancy relative to comparator countries have never been more urgent and yet also more challenging.

A state pension age of 60 had become
unsustainable & was sexist !

With advances in medecine, better working conditions, health & safety regulations, people on average are living longer

If you do not agree with state pension at 66, 67, 68+
What do you propose ?

1909 the UK state retirement age was 70 & it was means tested

OP what you described matches my own experience. I think the Govt rhetoric doesn't match the on-the-ground reality and there is still a lot of age discrimination out there. The result will be that we'll have to live off any private pensions to bridge the gap until the state pension arrives.
Plus the bald fact is that there is a lot of ill-health which makes it difficult or impossible for many in their 60s to work.

@DistantDancer Not sure if you were referring to me as OP?

If so, hopefully you’ve read the thread in whole and see my issue is less disagreeing with working longer, more recruiters and the Government not seeing eye-to-eye on this (unconsciously or not) which I can’t help but think will lead to unfortunate consequences that they don’t seem to have anticipated (the Government that is, companies wouldn’t consider it their problem).

Bloody hell, don’t say that. When I’m 60 my kids will only will be early 20s. Although they will be recipients of my pension, life insurance and house. The next generation maybe better off!

There needs to be provision for people of that age. I don’t think I could be in teaching as a full turn employee in my 60s (I’m PT but still do all directed hours) but I could manage tutoring. Trouble is whether there is the flexibility for that or whether you are stemmed unemployable after a certain age.

Yes most people died in horrible poverty before getting a pension.

And children (except for the rich) left school and started work at 12 years old.

You want to go backwards and lose all the progress made in obtaining a fairer more civilised society?

In 1909 retirees hadn’t been paying a lifetime of National Insurance contributions.

No it really wasn’t rare amongst boomers at all. My
parents and in-laws were both in this bracket.

The Waspi women were truly shafted.

Why does what retirement was like in 1909 have any bearing on anything? Rape and battery of wives was legal too.

It’s more sexist that women had less pension provision due to sexism in the workplace and society.

My post made no reference to what retirement was like in 1909.

Yes it did 🤷🏻‍♀️😂

Where?

There are now huge numbers of state employees whose pensions are payable at state pension age. So raising that means keeping teachers and NHS staff working past 67. I'm already struggling to think how the hell I'd be working in my role at 67 and trying to make plans to step down/move sideways/ work less prior to that. But there's no way education and health will be able to accommodate all the staff that would like to work less/in a less stressful role for the final 8-10 years of their working life. And yet most people will need an income and won't be able to stop work prior to their pension kicking in. ..I predict trouble ahead ...

Anyone going to promote the ideas of Jonathan Swift re children of the poor? Perhaps apply them to all those older people living the high life on their state pensions and living far too long apparently.

Yes it's very bleak.
My daughter is a millennial and is adamant that she doesn't want children as she doesn't feel there's much hope for the future.

@GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing two generations, not one. And there’s always been people who retired and, having lived quiet and frugal lives due to growing up working class and born in the early 20th/late 19th centuries, didn’t see a huge change in their lifestyles on retirement.

My late DGM inherited most of my DGFs final salary pension (paid out until her death 32 years after his) and lived very comfortably. Now my DF and DM have retired and are living equivalently to how they did when working. They’ve always been fairly low earners, but have paid off mortgage and debts. They’re not flashy or in to big holidays, so their lives are comfortable. If they need care in old age the house will have to be sold, as late DGM’s was.

It’s the generation of people in their 50s down who’ll struggle- the cohort who haven’t built up enough pension having been auto enrolled too old but who also missed out on old final salary pensions who will struggle.

I despair when I see people my age and a bit older (late 30s) burning through cash like there’s no tomorrow: we will need it in retirement.

The system obviously needs reform. The idea of having so many people economically unproductive for 30 years when their working life might not have been much more than this simply isn't sustainable.
Possible solutions might include:
Incentivising every employer with more than 100 employees to earnark a proportion of roles for people over 55. This could be made a "soft" target by having a sliding scale of tax discount so that employers who meet the target pay less tax than those who don't.
Reducing employer's NI contributions for over 55s so that they are cheaper to employ.
Making the state-pension a two-level deal where you get a small pension at what we currently call "retirement age" but that's only expected to help you make ends meet as you are generally capable of continuing to do some kind of productive activity. Medical certification needed to progress to a "full" pension once you are beyond any kind of gainful employment, which you progress to some time before the age of 95 or so on a case by case basis according to how much the specific faculties you need have deteriorated.

The tax incentives for saving to retirement need to be rebalanced because it's currently entirely possible for well qualified professionals in upper-middle-class type roles to save enough for a comfortable full retirement in 30 years or less of economically productive activity whereas anyone who earns less than about twice the average wage cannot possibly do much more than scrape together a pot which will provide a modest supplement to the state offer over that timescale. However it's these high-income professionals who are most capable of continuing to earn productivly even into their 80s whereas those who have spent their entire careers in the type of work that is lower-paid are much less likely to be capable of continuing that for longer.