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.

It's probably measuring different things. Eg average life expectancy of everyone currently alive versus life expectancy of someone born today. I vaguely recall reading that life expectancy would not continue to rise as it has done over the last 100 years or more. Some theories are on increase in obesity and subsequent health issues, impact of long COVID, but also I guess there must be an ultimate expiry date on the human body, however well looked after.

Ah ok thanks.

Still not good for healthy life expectancy though! (As someone fast approaching that age)

Things is though I’ve saved and if I get sick and can’t work I can’t make any claims? So I feel like you say it will impact on so many people but not sure on the percentage that would even be able to get benefits as at 50+ most people have some assets.

Isn't it more likely to do with having a bare bones healthcare system that only really kicks into action when you're facing potential death? All the other problems that accumulate as one gets older - thyroid, anaemia, arthritis, musculoskeletal disorders, various deficiencies - there's a higher bar to treatment and less of it available in the UK than in other developed countries.

I agree with some of what you said that as retirement age increases more people are going to struggle to continue working and sickness benefits will increase.
I don't agree that it's just tradies, retail and hospitality though. Office based, even WFH positions can still be high stress jobs. If you are trying to balance meeting huge pressure at work whilst dealing with health conditions, it can cause anxiety and cognitive difficulties.
I was born in the 70s and we all grew up and knew pensions were important back then. Many positions like factory workers had access to DB pensions unlike most people today. Many chose to bury their head in the sand. We certainly weren’t led to believe the state pension would support us. I remember thinking in my 30s I'll doubt there'll be a state pension when I retire, so I'm actually pleased there will, albeit at a higher age than is ideal. Your private pensions should be helping to bridge the gap between giving up work and getting state pension.
Self-employed have benefited for years from reduced NI and being able to offset a lot of tax. These savings should have been put towards their retirement.

A lot of those factory pensions were lost of course in the M&A craze following Blair/Brown's deregulation of the financial markets. It's only in the last 10 years that there's been guaranteed works pensions. And they are far less generous.

All the old nationalised industries had final salary pensions for full time staff. Weekly paid operatives didn’t have anywhere near such a good deal, neither did part time staff. I knew managers from the National Coal Board, and the Gas Board retiring in their late fifties on around 2/3 salaries. That was back in the 1980/90s. Enhanced if redundancy was included, during and after privatisation. I left after 18 years (not all pensionable sadly) at fifty in the mid 90s with a payout, a big help as my next job was lower paid.

That's life expectancy, the pp was talking about healthy life expectancy- two very different things.

What state pension dream were those born in 60/70s sold? I was born mid sixties and have always known I needed another pension and didn't rely on the state pension as it has never on it's own given a decent standard of living.
I do agree that raising the state pension age will lead to more disability/ill health benefits.

My DC are early 70s born, they and their similar age DPs have always paid into occupational or private pensions. At least many will have paid off their mortgages, which is a huge help in retirement.

You’re wrong to state a desk job isn’t affected by rising age. I mean for many women it’s affected much earlier by brain fog and other issues. Yes it’s physically less exhausting, but mentally harder being on top of your game into your late 60’s. Hard in different ways, and quite rude to suggest an office worker would just be coasting and can’t be bothered if not at their best.

YANBU. It's worse for people in manual jobs, but it isn't great for anyone. I'm in my 50s in an office job with an ever-growing list of health problems that I'm stuck on long NHS waiting lists trying to fix. I'm in pain most days and working is a struggle because I find it hard to concentrate, painkillers make me feel drowsy, half the time I'm wishing I could go and lie down in bed.

I genuinely think I may be dead before I reach state pension age.

I feel health wise the retirement age should be 65 for both men and women alike.

It's just going to exacerbate the gap between rich and poor. Well off people who can afford to save for retirement will do so and retire when they choose, leaving all those who can't afford to save to work themselves do death.

Some people enjoy work and are easily capable of working well into old age but I suspect these are in the minority. It should be a choice.

The missing discussion here is the state pension is a benefit that is paid for by current tax payers. The reason the state pension age is rising is we simply cannot afford to keep paying it out from existing tax, there aren't enough tax payers (look up the dependency ratio). To keep state pension age at 65 we would need to raise income tax significantly.

This is an interesting debate and probably a couple of years ago I would have thought that life expectancy meant that most of us will live to our 80's and have around 15 years of retirement. I think the reality is actually very different. Although average life expectancy is 80ish a good proportion of people will die before then and the indicator of good health expectancy is depressing. And as someone who spends a lot of time in churchyards I can anecdotally say that for headstones from the last 20 years death in their 70's is very common. Life expectancy is not improving either and is at best static and at worst declining.

I have family currently in poor health job hunting in their early 60s, they are finding the whole situation depressing, they have health issues that perhaps could be improved by a better lifestyle but equally at this point even with a radical change in lifestyle their health is not going to radically change. They have a miserable few years leading to retirement being hounded by UC.

Equally I also have relatives who have lived incredibly healthy lives and have died from illness not affected by lifestyle and dementia, which had robbed them completely of their retirement.

From my own experience I actually now think that state pension should be from 65, with an option for either a phased claim from 60 or a health related sort of medical retirement from 60 which to be honest does seem to suit the statistics around healthy life expectancy.

He is lucky to be so healthy. Meanwhile my 76 year old mother has 7 fractured vertebrae (osteoporosis and myeloma) and needs morphine to get through the day and my 81 year old father has dementia.

I'm a TA. My work pension does not kick in until state pension age (67). I believe I can take it earlier but that comes at a huge financial cost. Fortunately for me I am not totally reliant on that pension but a lot of other people in that role are. And I cannot imagine still doing the job at 67!

Pensions are quite complicated things and I'd say the majority of people don't really understand what they should be doing to plan for retirement. That isn't something we should be judging them for, we should be supporting people to do what they can.

You should also bear in mind that very low earners are going to struggle to put money away into a private pension when they need every penny to survive now.

If you start early and with tax breaks and employer contributions, even just £20 a month can make a difference

I left teaching before I got to 50 for this exact reason. Twisting to the board and back had already ruined my lower back. I had to take a significant pay drop to make the change but am now making my way back up slowly in a wfh job. I have to workout with weights every morning though because the desk job does wreck your back. The mental stress of my job is still hugely high. I can’t decide some days what is worse - mental stress or physical. Teaching was both. But yeah there’s definitely some jobs impossible to do later in life.

This.

The focus on training new recruits rather than doing everything would help.

Maybe a graduated retirement where people could take a small amt of pension and slightly reduce working week over time.

Spending on asylum seekers is not the issue. That is 0.4% of government spending. The issue is that pensions are 11 to 12% of government spending, or 55 to 58% of welfare spending.

You are comparing illegal migrants with pensioners? Seriously?

Do you have a source for the 0.4%? Is this just those with asylum seeker status or does it include refugees as well?

People are only asylum seekers temporarily for a short time while their claims are being processed.