To think that constantly increasing retirement age will just cause an increase in health related benefit claims?

[PyongyangKipperbang]

I am early 50's and have worked in hospitality for years, a very active job.

I am feeling it now, I really am. Back, general fitness and plantar fasciitis. Longer to recover from physical exhaustion. On it goes.

Surely people in physical occupations like mine, nursing, trade, retail etc are going to need to stop far sooner than people in desk based occupations? When we physically cannot keep going (my retirement age is 67 currently) what do we do?! Our health issues are often caused (or at least, exacerbated) by our careers, and our skills are not those that would transfer into office based jobs. Even if they were, there simply are not enough jobs for us all on top of the people our age already doing them.

So what is the alternative? I cannot see any other way than to claim benefits until state pensions kick in. And dont forget that a lot of people in manual jobs dont have private pensions as these have always been traditionally lower paid jobs. Those of us born in the 60's/70's were sold the state pension dream, we didnt need to worry about private pensions. It only became clear that actually we did when it was too late for those of us on lower salaries to make enough provision for old age.

The alternative option will hopefully be young people taking their pension contributions seriously and funding their own retirement from their first salary payment rather than panicking in their 50's.

I have pretty much written off the State Pension, 68 for me but expect goal posts to change again.

I've paid into my work pension since 18 and then a separate private pension from around 40. Does mean I'm poorer than my peers who are driving brand new cars and have massive mortgages and homes bigger than they need etc but hopefully I'll be retiring by 60 at the latest.

As male life expectancy was also 70, few people claimed it for long.
It was lowered to 65 for men and women in 1926 and then lowered again just for women in 1940.
The reason for this was because men tended to marry younger women and thus they were more likely as a result to claim pensions at a similar time….

Pension schemes are a bit rubbish now compared to the past plus wage stagnation, housing costs & student loans means saving is tough.

Four day working week might help so that there’s more opportunity to recover and the work that needs to be done is shared out over more people. But following any suggestion like that obviously the question is where does the money come from so everyone still has enough to live while working fewer hours. And the answer has to include stopping the constant net flow of money, power and property to the ultra rich few, enabling government to have actual power and purchasing capability again, with better democratic accountability, more exports, preventing mega corporations from taking ever increasing profits and putting smaller firms out of business… none of which is easy.

Capita have it & won't hand it out!!!

Its still better for the government though - even if 80% of those over the previous pension age are claiming benefits because they can't work its cheaper than giving 100% of them the pension.

Because the sort of job I referred to is at the low paid end of the wage spectrum.

The shop workers, the hospitality workers, the factory workers, the tradies (although the tradies are now earning more, they didnt back in the 70's and 80's), were working to pay the bills and feed the kids. There was no spare money for a pension, especially as the government told us that we would get our state pension so didnt need to.

I suspect you are either a lot younger than the people I am talking about, or you have always had a higher paid job.

My plan is to start tutoring but how many kids will really want to be tutored by someone the same age as their grandma!!

I gave up employed work at 60 (you could take your state pension then) went into consultancy and began my own business. I suspect this is a route which will be taken by more older workers who are no longer physically able to continue with employed work. People will alter their behaviour as the regulations change.

I now tutor post graduates and am in my 80s! Working with adults doing a masters or doctorate is very different than tutoring children. In strictly professional terms it can be a very intense and intimate relationship. However I do pick my students carefully and I prefer international.They are more respectful and more in need of my help. They are also more likely to be able to afford my fees.

People will have to start living healthier lives, eating more fruit and veg and doing more exercise in order to ensure they are healthy enough to work into their 70s.

I did lots of exercise and now my knees are knackered

Yes, but if you claim disability benefits, they get to call you a scrounger and deny you the payout.

The state financing a lengthy, active retirement for otherwise healthy adults is unsustainable. Yes, there will be more people claiming benefits because they are physically unable to carry on but even getting a few more years (on average) before pension kicks in makes a big difference to state finances.

ultimately the state will be there if you cannot support yourself, but if you want an early, leisurely retirement you are going to need to fund it yourself.

Good for you. Myself, in my twenties and thirties I paid into TWO (2) employer pension funds that went bust. All that money, my money, just gone. I've been playing catch-up ever since and I'm far from alone. There's no way I can ever recoup those losses via the shitty low risk low reward stakeholder schemes that we're all signed up to now. They're a bad deal.

The one bright spot is that now the schemes can't go bust so young folks now won't lose everything but fuck me it takes a full forty years of contributing to get anything halfway decent.

Why do they not have money?
Paying in to a private pension has always been an option!

Lots of reasons people might not have paid much, if anything, into a private pension.

low paid job
high living costs - rent and childcare etc
debts
caring responsibilities
ill health
disability
divorce/separation
financial/economic abuse

All of that plus barriers to paying into works schemes at all. Certainly when I started work in the 80s you weren't eligible for an employer scheme until you'd been somewhere full time for two years and even then only a few people a year got let in. Mostly men, as I recall! Private pensions were available but as it turns out were often mis-sold, people lost a lot of money in what were basically Ponzi operations, it was all very shady and unregulated. The people who are going to be retiring over the next twenty years got screwed all ways and now are being told that it's their fault for failing to plan.

Maybe we should move to a system like France. If you work in certain roles, you can retire before state pension age if you meet the criteria.

I agree many just wont make it to state retirement age. Should havr stayed 60 for women 65 for men. Unfair as that was this is worse as now between a couple they already lose 8 years so 12x 8 and 3x 8 so 11x 12 132k…

But no, office workers are worse off. As mentally many people just arent on it by 60+ or are sleeping more.
my colleague was making so many mistakes and i was carrying her. And had other ops taking her lut for several months where there was no cover it was hell.

She did sadly die relatively young around 55-60.
In most offices there is pressure constantly to do more/take on more/more quickly and it makes many offices not pleasant.

But i think many younger people with sich expensive childcare and housing will struggle to retire early.
Whilst my reatives are still alive at 80 they havent worked ft since 55…

A bigger issue is lack of jobs or promotion due to older people in those roles.
Final salary and serps really would be much better for most.

My gen will have laid into state pension and into private as will their employer but will have mostly nowhere near the final salary amounts. If final salary paid say even 1/3 so 1:3 of 30k 10k you would need 300k in private pension .
Do employers need to pay in a higher % or maybe a minimum so it actually would provide a reasonable pension.

Absolutely and so does things like cutting community services as it means less people looking out for the elderly, increased loneliness. Less sahp impacts as they would often pick up the care for elderly parents. When ever one area of funding is cut /reduced it just increases in another area.

When I started working I was on something like £3.67 an hour. No compulsory workplace pension so it just didn’t exist. So I didn’t really have much to spare to put into a private pension.

It’s annoying that office work is dismissed as the easier option that doesn’t cause health issues.
Sedentary work can cause back and joint issues, poor fitness levels and then there’s the difficulty in keeping up with fast changing technology as well as legislation changes when your brain starts to get a lot slower.
While I very much agree that a rising retirement age is not a good thing, it’s equally difficult for people in fast paced and high pressure office jobs as it is for a builder for example as we age, but for different reasons.
We aren’t all drinking tea and doing a bit of filing and photocopying you know!

The alternative? Who is going to pay £2.8 billion per year for illegal migrants? Who is going to pay for wars in Libya, Syria, Ukraine? Who is going to pay £570 to rejoin Erasmus so young Sebastians can go on a yah abroad? Who is going to pay £1.7 billion foreign aid? It has to come from somewhere, right?

Money will obviously prevent people from retiring early if they only have the state pension.

YANBU. For those in offices, I’m finding brain fog, age in general makes it harder to be on top of your game. Memory, sight, concentration is all impaired.

Staring at a screen all day or sitting with the same aches and pains you describe when really tired is not fun either.

Throughout history the powers that be never give rights unless they are agitated and fought for, I’d be up for a MN social movement not least as also predicted, when we job block the young ones can’t get on.

I don't disagree that sickness benefits will increase however everyone in a physical job knows they are going to get older and struggle physically. You need to be making plans to switch careers as you get older in that case. I left nursing after 30 years but always planned to get out by my 50's. I now work from home, although working at a computer all day does come with it's own problems (neck and shoulders!)
My ex partner was a carpet fitter with knackered knees so he opened his own carpet shop and employed young ones to do the fitting. No-one has to stay in the same profession their whole life but you do need to be thinking about up skilling/retraining if you have a very physical job by the time you get to your 40's.

The retirement age is 65 where I live, but I don't recognise all these people who are knackered and can't continue. I have a 77 year old neighbour still working in a full time manual job, there is a builder who must be in his 60s working on six new properties just along the road (it's his business), I was talking to a nurse recently who is older than I am (I'm 67) who was still working and had no plans to retire (because she enjoys the job), and in fact I know a number of people who carry on working past retirement age, and not because of necessity, they just like working.

As for those who think they might like to work in an office, I hope you have sharp brains as the rate things are changing in technology you will need them to keep up!

Oh, and I forgot to say my hairdresser has no plans to retire in the foreseeable future and he is 64/65 I think.