To think 71 is too old for state pension age?

[winterwonder1]

This isn't just for people who are 21 now - that's for people born after 1970 - so 55 now. I can't imagine being fit enough to do my job at 71.
DWP State Pension age will have to rise to 71 says report | News Shopper

Yep, let's just work until we drop dead.

Hi there Hair,
We have taken on a net migration of 728,000. I'm not sure where you get 5m but my stats are from here below. 1.2m migrated in and the difference is those leaving.

So, I know you feel it's 5m but it's really not. 25% of people will be over the age of 65 in 2050. That's a huge amount. Pensions are one of the biggest spends for the UK. As someone pointed out above people are living longer but their healthy life span is not increasing, so basically we are also going to be needing lots of healthcare too.

My concerns are many, but just one is who will provide all the care?
Hth

I do have sympathy and I know it’s not easy but it can be done. I’m not saying everyone can but that it is possible. I only have GCSE’s, left school at 16, but I was and remain very driven. I think we are brain washed into thinking it’s not possible to succeed without a degree which is not true.
BUT, we also need people who are driven by something different, a desire to care for people, or who just want to do a good job for a fair wage.
I wish everyone had access to a living wage and ability to save…and they don’t which is upsetting. I just wanted to make the point that if financial security is a priority…it can be achieved (and I say that as someone who has been a single parent, rented till my late thirties, received no CSA, grew up in a council house).
Ask for the promotions, move jobs to get a pay rise, learn new skills.

Us @TankFlyBossW4lk the current low wage earning mugs who will work till they drop.

71 is far too old. I’ve worked since I was 16 (apart from 3 years in my twenties when I went to uni) So far, that’s 23 years. I can’t imagine doing another 30 years of work 😢 😢

Whilst there’s plenty of people who genuinely can’t work through ill health, there’s others who choose not to. My DSD is one. She’s 21 and has never had a job ever. Says she can’t be bothered 🤷‍♀️ Basically, there needs to be harsher sanctions for people who won’t work to try and get them to so that we can all
retire at a decent age.

Also, a lot of recent retirees (so 67-75??) are looking after their elderly parents who are in their 90s. My MIL was her mum’s primary carer from the ages of (approx) 67-72 (retired at 67). She wouldn’t have been able to do that if she was working 🤷‍♀️ Surely that must save the state money if people don’t have to go into government funded care homes. If people are forced to work longer then there’s fewer people to do the caring.

My DH DID pay in Then they went bust

Absolutely brilliant that you managed that @Tangfastic71 . Genuinely. But not everyone can do that. We don't all have that capability.

As has been said repeatedly on this thread, the poverty trap is a sociological term, defining the way many are trapped. Lack of education, opportunities, funding, ability. For some it's a lethal combination.

Repeating again and again (not aimed at you Tangfastic) that everyone can save, but just doesn't want to, will make zero change.

• Sure start early education centres
• Nurseries
• Smaller class sizes
• Better equipped teachers (decreased teacher workload)
• More funding of schools in deprived areas
• SEN support
• Better funding of social services
• Post 16 support (currently, teenagers just retake and retake GCSE English & Maths with little actual support in FE colleges)
• Apprenticeships
• Job centres that actually support the unemployed back into work rather than just effecting sanctions of benefits
• Adult retraining
• Increased social housing
• Rent caps
• Utility caps / benefit top up for utilities

Until the whole of society offers more support to the poor / working class, there will be a majority who can't earn/save enough to pay into a pension. It's a logical equation.

Yes, some escape the trap and can. But the majority of the population can't due to our vastly unequal system.

But by all means tell me again how it's just the greed and laziness of the undeserving poor. The Victorians would be so proud of you! It's like Beveridge never existed.

If you mean the £12.21 a week one, that figure takes for granted that a person is able to save a sum which is admittedly small, but will nevertheless be out of many people's reach, as would any sum at all.

I hate to break it to you, but there are many, many people today in low wage Britain earning barely enough to feed and house themselves, for whom even £12.21 a week (aka £48.84 a month) is too much. Why do you think debt happens? Or people in full-time work needing to use food banks? Do you think they can magically conjure up £48.84 a month?

If you think everyone is capable of saving no matter how little they're paid, you're shockingly out of touch or perhaps just indifferent to other people's hardship because it doesn't affect you personally.

Regarding the state pension, I neither claimed to have a solution nor that no changes would need to be made to the current model, so your question is irrelevant. It's your blinkered attitude that I'm objecting to.

It's not just the poor/working class. I know a lot of middle class people (being from that demographic myself) who have no pension. My sister is one of them. Has barely worked her entire life, so I doubt she's made anywhere near enough NI contributions to get a full state pension either. Does own her own house, though, so is hoping that will fund her old age. She's definitely not alone in this. Yes in the 90s some workplaces did offer private pensions, but really only the bigger companies. Small companies didn't, until it became compulsory.

I didn't start saving into a pension myself until I was 30 because I was on an absolutely shit salary, living in London, no Bank of Mum and Dad to fall back on, and could barely afford to live. Saving wasn't an option. Mumsnet seems to be full of people working in financial services who've been on decent money since they graduated (from a Russell Group uni, natch - as did I!) but lots of people don't fit this mould IRL.

I paid into an employer pension when it was offered. I have a very small private pension and a reduced state pension because I had an employer pension. But many employers I worked for did not offer an employer pension

I didn’t say that everyone is capable of saving, but MOST are. The vast majority of working people will be able to put something aside towards retirement if they prioritise it, and if started early enough it really doesn’t take much to build something for a comfortable and/or earlier retirement. It is a false narrative that only the rich build pension pots.

The reality is that we cannot afford the current system, and trying to do so means the problem gets bigger and bigger and we forego investment in other important areas like education and health.

I don't agree that most are capable of saving. We live in a country where people live on credit and regularly use food banks. Loads of people spend more than they earn (through no fault of their own but because wages are poor and the cost of living is high), hence having to use top up benefits - that's more than half of all working UK households, according to governnment data. I don't think anyone could confidently say that all those households have spare money to pay into private pensions.

But a small private pension tops up the state pension. It is not enough to retire early.

£50 per month is less than the cost of a takeaway for the family. I realise that for the poorest this is more than they can manage, but do you really believe that the majority of UK households can’t afford a takeaway once a month? If so, how are there so many of these restaurants still in business? There are plenty of people eating takeaways, going on holidays, paying for salon services, etc. that put nothing into their pensions.

You can use it to retire early, top up the state pension or both - depends on how early you want to retire and how much you think you need to top up and maintain your lifestyle. Obviously if you want to retire at 50 and travel the world you will need a bigger pension than someone who retires at 65 and is happy with just the odd day out.

well, apparently only 50% of the population but one takeaway (or more) each month.
And just 14% of the population buys a takeaway every 2 weeks.

As I’m assuming your £50 is per person, only 14% of the population can afford that right now.

I'm beginning to worry about the upcoming tinkering with when you can take your private pension. Obviously the first shift is from 55yrs to 57yrs in 2028 but who knows what will come down the pipeline next?

That’s not the numbers I found.
The 66% is working full time OR part time.

Which is what you are arguing happened. Most mothers worked full time…..

The truth is the government and upper middle class onwards benefit from millions being in the poverty trap.

It's spouted out on here daily from middle class about "outsourcing the workload" of frazzled mothers, but who do these people think it's being outsourced to? It's another frazzled mother (only considerably poorer) now doing your ironing and cleaning. She also has children to parent and cleaning/shopping to do.

So they are now trapped, because those who can outsource now have the time to study up to the next level , do a side hustle or do anything that benefits them either financially or mentally.

it wasn't was for 9 years on average in 1909 for those that got to retirement age and now 20 years for those that reach retirement age

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/lifeexpectancies/articles/howhaslifeexpectancychangedovertime/2015-09-09

life expectancy in1909 when pension was started at age 70

You need help with your critical reasoning. 14% do so does not equate to 14% can afford to. I buy no takeaways, but certainly could afford to.

That data point only considers those that actually made it to 65. Life expectancy for someone who made it to 15 (so excluding infant mortality) was around 65, with state pension eligibility set at 70. Thus most people would expect to work until they died.

I actually think there's a a big problem. If you look at the Institute of Fiscal Studies report, Govt can do 1 of 2 things, raise the pension age or reduce how much we all get. They've opted for an increase in pension age.

The problem is, although the life expectancy is 80 or so, the health life expectancy is only around 60. So that means they are relying on people to work longer and in reality they might not be able to. There might not be jobs for them, of course, either.

This is why I think we need to increase our working age population. The best way I personally think of doing this is immigration. We can't do it any other way. There aren't enough gen Zers etc already. So too late for a indigenous population increase. I also think if people don't like increase immigration from Commonwealth countries or elsewhere, for whatever reason, then European immigration might have been more palatable. But it seems that the narrative of no one welcome because we spend too much on them wins, although it isn't true. Dare I say it, but I think we should align with the EU. It's much better for us. Especially in the age of Trump/Elon.