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

Don’t we?
What about we start actually taxing the richest people in the world and the big companies like Amazon, fb and the likes? The people and companies who have increased their wealth and profits in staggering amounts whilst people were struggling more and more?
Like those companies who saw theur profits explode during a CoL crisis. Supermarkets, electricity and gas.

We have a massive issue with the way wealth is distributed. At the same time we started to say ‘we can’t pay for that! You’ll have to make do with you have’, the richest saw their wealth increase more and more. Just by chance really and due to all their hard work ofc <huge sarcasm>.

We need to stop saying we can’t and look at the bigger picture.
The government is currently thinking to let FB, Amazon etc… have reduction in their taxes. It refused before to increase taxation on petrol companies, when they had agreed to it! It’s refusing to investigate tax evasion from companies (valued in billions) whilst increasing checks on small claimants - looking fur pennies whilst ignoring millions.
All that is a choice. A choice we’re paying with pensions, disability benefits, a lack of protection of tye most vulnerable - from the NHS to education to social care.
We need to stop saying there is no choice and no money tree. The tree is here. We’re chosing to not using.

Average healthy life expectancy is 61 years. So that's ten years of working in ill-health.

Mind you, when state pensions were introduced the average life expectancy was only one year longer than the pension age.

I’ve said this before on here but can you please give me examples of the specific taxes that these companies are avoiding?

Because if they are not paying the taxes they are obliged to legally I promise you HMRC would be all over it.

The Conservative government increased corporation tax from 19% to 25% so companies are paying more tax. Employer NI increases in April too so even more taxes paid by employers.

Amazon etc are not based in the U.K. They pay U.K. tax on their U.K. profits.

Agree with this. The previous poster seems to suggest that once someone reaches the end of their “usefulness” then as long as society does just enough that they don’t die it’s all good.

Not a world I want to live in (or, let’s face it, experience) either.

We can't afford to keep paying pensions. The tories wasted all our money on their rich mates. And labour are conspicuous by not doing anything to address people's cost of living. They are going to help the reform loons get in if they don't start looking after people more.
I'm afraid people are that stupid to vote reform. Very worrying.

What money went on their rich mates? They increased income taxes on the wealthiest and slashed capital gains allowances to the bone, increased corporation tax.

The money went on all the Covid grants.

Excellent points.

i would also add that doubling down on taxing the wealthy and punishing businesses would likely backfire. Labour’s early and tentative moves in that direction have resulted in a flight of wealthy tax payers as well as a contraction in economic growth forecasts. You might not agree with how wealth is distributed in this country, but any major effort at redistribution would just result in a poorer UK.

Michelle Mone and the VIP channel presumably passed you by? That’s a single example, there are plenty more where that came from.

There are? Please enlighten me…

Because I’ve outlined billions of pounds in tax rises and you’ve quoted 1 newspaper story.

Here you go. The NAO reckons fraud amounted to £5.5 billion.

https://www.rpclegal.com/thinking/insurance-and-reinsurance/no-bouncing-back-for-directors/

Exactly. No ability to understand that people are different. Situations are different. Lives pan out differently.

Around £400 billion spent on Covid support so this amounts to a fraud rate of 0.0125%.

I have no reason to believe that a Labour government would have performed any better in this regard. Hardly handing out money to their rich mates as was claimed is it?

But this thread is about state pension age not covid grants.

When my mum retired from teaching she was 60, this was the standard age for women in those days. She was already unwell with heart disease, She had four years of retirement which was spent in very poor health and then she died at 64. All those years of work, inside and outside the home and then 4 short years of being poorly and semi-mobile and in pain. A lot of people aren't even going to make it to 71 or if they do will only have a few years of retirement. Maybe this has been factored into the plan.

Ironically the people with the longest life expectancy are people better off financially. These are also the people who can choose to retire early. Poorer people will not have that choice, and have a much lower life expectancy.

Actually it is, and was supposed to support us for years - that’s why we pay NI contributions. This link between NI contributions and state pension is being gradually eroded until most of us will have paid into the promise of a state pension that we’ll never see because we’ll die first.

Wow. That's an eye-opener, and somewhat gives the lie to the 'everyone can afford to save' rhetoric some are peddling on here.

This country is in an absolute mess.

That’s one example though. I concede there will be a small number of these, but the vast majority of pensioners live on very modest incomes and many live in relative poverty.

Yep. 😓What's really depressing on here is how many people on this thread have drunk the Kool-aid and are solemnly regurgitating the whole 'you can't expect the state to support you' rhetoric. The state pension should provide a baseline income that is possible to live on (with the proviso that yes, luxuries will probably need to be provided for by other means). We should be able to 'expect the state to support us' with the basics because we spend our entire working lives paying into a system that was conceived to do exactly that. And, yes, they keep moving the goalposts probably in the hope that many of us won't live to access the results of our contributions at all.

Some people really need to read up on the history of pensions in this country.

And some people need to look at changing demographics, falling birth rates and get themselves a calculator.

I think you'd be surprised how few choices low earners actually have. Especially if you think they have the luxury of choosing between a £50 takeaway and putting £50 money into a pension, when that spare £50 isn't actually there to begin with.

I'm not attempting to deny any of the realities of where the country is at regarding this. What I am objecting to is the way it has changed and the fact that the core principle of the state pension has been eroded. It's tantamount to theft. We pay in on the supposed assumption that in time we will get something back, and more and more people are getting nothing because they aren't living long enough.

Some people might be happy to suck it up like mugs and preach to others that they should have saved out of their own often non-existent disposable incomes, but personally I think people should be getting angry, because whole generations are being cheated here.

I’m sorry to hear that. I wouldn’t wish poverty in old age on anyone. Arthritis and other age related ailments are bad enough without not being able to keep our homes warm. In older age we need higher temperatures in our homes to protect our health.

Maybe look into starting a small private pension for some extra.

Yup. I retired from my permanent teaching post at 58, with a reduced teaching pension - very reluctantly, but my HT wouldn't reduce my hours and I was my husband's carer.

I've done a bit of supply since he died, but I'm not up to working full-time. The family arthritis has made itself known, I've had a uterine cancer scare and the symptoms were not conducive to supply work. It also turns out that I have genetic problems with my legs and feet. Understandably, schools don't want to make adjustments for supply staff.

I'll be 65 this year. Trying very hard to keep fit, but auld age doesna come by itself.

I'm convinced that the powers that be have decided that it'll be so much more convenient if people die before they collect their state pension. I cannot imagine how people who do manual work will be expected to survive until they're 71. I suspect that many won't.

I realise that I'm in a much better position than most.

Honestly, heating the house has been one of the the biggest worries since I've been on my own. I'm in real pain if the house is cold.

The UK state pension is already one of the lowest in Europe. Private pensions were sold to older people like me as a way to top up the state pension so we had enough money for more than a subsistence existence, not to replace it.
And if that happened, I would advise young people not to save for a private pension unless you are well off, as you would be better off relying on the state.