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.

I saw a politician on newsnight say exactly this years ago. Said people could go and work at b&q 🤷‍♀️. Like there’s enough jobs for every 65yo there!

Are you actually serious? Can you not imagine how it may not have been possible for some people to pay into a private pension?
For a while I was a divorced single mother with no maintenance (thanks useless CMS/ its equivalent) on minimum wage with top ups.
There wasn’t a spare penny to put into a pension. Fortunately I’m in a much better position now but there are plenty who are struggling and just worried about today.
Do you suppose people who have to use foodbanks have spare money for a private pension?

in a supermarket job and a lot of the 50 plus year olds are struggling (I’m 46 and not great but I literally want to hand them a lottery win and say you’re done!!) but we chose this op, and we need to find our out, because we can’t leave early (and of course definitely can’t afford to!!) so I think it’s more that we’ll have to figure out if we can change jobs- my friends who are nurses are now moving into more administrative hours within their job so less hours in wards more doing the paperwork- I think we need to figure out what we can do to not be hauling crates of beer, coke and water age 65!!!

i agree. No way I’m working at Amazon in my 70s although there are jobs there I could easily do at that age. I’ll have a bad back by then

Yes, a lifetime of office work has stuffed my back. At age 60 I worked for a while in a temp job, standing all day, lifting heavy boxes, moving things around - my back was absolutely fine.

Then I think the manual workers will need to swap jobs with the office workers in later life! That way they can keep working and use different muscles that aren’t knackered to work!

My parents were incredibly fit and healthy. They didn't have a car, walked miles, cycled miles ---- sometimes hundreds of miles when they were on holiday.
Everything was eaten fresh, very little processed food.
Mum got to her early 50's and developed rheumatoid arthritis. This then seemed to set off lots of heath issues. Diabetes, heart issues needing a pace maker. She became incredibly frail due to all this.
Dad slightly better health wise, but again heart issues, lung cancer and various other health issues.

So just by living healthier lives does not always relate to being fit and healthy in later life!

Dh works at a desk and his body is falling apart from sedentary working. Yanbu though.

You might have something there!

I hear you, and you are totally right that people cannot be expected to do these physically exhausting jobs until the age of 70. However I think your conclusion is wrong. What is needed is proper career phase planning. You don't stick in the physically exhausting version of the job full time until you break completely and have to go on to disability benefits. At a time that will vary from individual to individual but long before retirement age, you transfer to more appropriate duties that use your wisdom and experience but no longer require you to keep up with what you could do physically when you were younger. What is needed is legislation to require employers with over a certain minimum number of employees in physically demanding roles to structure the workforce to create a proportionate number of "last stage of career" jobs that are suitable for people in this circumstance. We can agree that it's not appropriate for someone with back issues and joint pain to do the heavy work, without therefore concluding that they should be able to retire and not work at all any more.

But if you work in a physical job you know you're going to need yo make a change in your later years (unless you save up enough to retire early). A friend of mine was a fireman, now in his 60s he's a bar man and does DIY type jobs like putting up shelves for a living. The alternative to physical work doesnt have to be benefits.

You are right.

It is nonsensical to suggest that people with jobs that involve a lot of physical strain will just be able to magically carry working in their late 60s.

Also governments seem to gloss over the fact that many employers don't want to employ or retain older people.

All that raising the state pension age achieves is pushing people on to benefits so there are no savings made whatsoever.

Policy making cannot change the biological reality of people's ageing bodies and minds.

I guess they have looked at the numbers - because so many decisions come down to money - and have calculated there are many who are not going to retire at state pension age because they have private pensions, some who have savings to bridge gap from 64 say to state pension age, some who can work until 68(?)

So the numbers involved, it’s cheaper to pay some people benefits than everyone pension.

The other issue with that is the impact it has on young people looking for jobs.

Round here a tourist attraction has been, for many many years, almost a rite of passage for teens getting their first jobs. However, now they have a fair number of people in their 60s employed instead - they don’t train them and they disappear off to uni after a couple of summers, there are no restrictions on working hours and they don’t ask for days to be changed around classes. The last paper round there is in the village is done by a man who is 74/75. Combined with the lower number of hospitality jobs teens are really struggling for jobs.

But the thing is if you have a manual/physically demanding job you are well aware of it before you reach 60+ you have plenty of time to have a rethink before you get there. My brother in law works in a very physically demanding, but well paid job (he's an engineer that fixes machinery on building sites, he spends most of his days on the floor in a puddle under giant machinery in all weathers). The people (men) who work in this job are well aware this is not a job you can do beyond late 50's, and although my brother in law is only early 30's he is starting to think about what he will do, he aims to make as much as he can in the next 10-15 years, pay the mortgage off before moving to something less physical, but likely less well paid.

You just have to make plans early on if you are in a job you know you can't carry on in into old age, whether it be overpaying into pensions, planning a side move into something less physical sooner rather than later. If you wait until you are in your late 50's/early 60's then go omg I can't carry on working in this job it is just piss poor future planning.

You've completely missed the point about those doing heavy, physical work, are often knackered, come 60 years old. Men's working lives used to kill them. Then there's the pressures of teaching, a lot of teachers struggle with full time, come their 60s.
@WhitegreeNcandle some people have really good genetics. A lot of people are already dead at his age. The majority of care home residents are in their 70s.

Loads of employers didn't even offer a pension until they were forced into it, so many of us didn't have that option.

So how long are you supposed to live post pension age? Lots of people die before they reach it.

@Newsenmum 10 years, I think the actuary calculations were based on the majority of people dying within that time post retirement. But medical advances in the 60s-90s completely changed mortality rates.

Exactly. That’s the bit I don’t understand. Why not have a lower retirement age and then you’ll have more jobs for all those young people who we always read about.

It pisses me off. I remember them talking about inequality when women retired at 60 and men at 65, but I naively assumed they’d go for a retirement age in the middle, like 62 or 63 - not make everyone carry on working until they’re dead on their feet. It’s stupid. When I look at the people I know in their early 60s who are working, they’re all struggling to varying extents. Ones a cleaner and knackered, another’s a TA and tells me how much her back hurts after bending down all day, another does a manual job in a warehouse and is struggling with the physical work now. Just stupid.

And on the other side of the coin we have young people struggling to find their first job or competing for a job where there are loads of applicants.

You are absolutely right OP. Plus if you get PIP before SPA, you have it for life, so it's even more.

And the smug response of 'well they should have saved' is just really ignorant of life in the back end of the 20C. Things and norms change! But it's good to learn from those lessons and educate our YP now to save.

I was a sedentary office worker who couldn't have continued until SPA, it was way too fast paced and the commute was beyond me.

The majority of care home residents are in their 70s

Is that a fact?

In a very similar situation. I teach up to 20 fitness classes a week and am in my fifties. Came from a completely different industry but my qualifications in that are so old now and not been in that profession for over 20 years now so can hardly return. I want to work but it seems everything stacked against us - considered too young to retire but too old to retrain. Also, like you I found it very hard at a desk job.

You just have to make plans early on if you are in a job you know you can't carry on in into old age, whether it be overpaying into pensions, planning a side move into something less physical sooner rather than later. If you wait until you are in your late 50's/early 60's then go omg I can't carry on working in this job it is just piss poor future planning

You do realise many (most?) manual jobs don’t pay well, and the idea you can somehow save up to retire 15 years early is laughable when you’re struggling with every day living costs? As for moving into a less physical job, yes that’s ok in theory but there just aren’t that many jobs around and competition is high.

The majority of care home residents are in their 70s

Nonsense. The median age is around 86. Most care home residents are in their 80's, a very large number in their 90's.

Age expectancy has been rising for decades. The issue was governments didn't act quickly enough 30 odd years ago. The expectation should have been set long ago that you would need to work longer. It is unsustainable to pay pensions for 30 years.

DD has an 80+ year old working in her retail outlet, my next door neighbour still does part time building work in his mid 70's. My brother's all did part time physical work until their 70's after officially retiring. I think flexibility is the key.