After lockdown...the sh*t will hit the fan

[Desperado40]

My biggest fear is not covid or if life will be ever back to normal. I know this will pass and we will be able to socialise, travel etc. at some point.
What’s keeping me awake at night, literally, is the state of affairs when we are out of the immediate covid crisis. There will be high unemployment, lots of businesses will go bust after support tap is off, mental health and general health crisis (think of the huge backlog of surgeries and treatments postponed!). But most of all, I ma fearingthe day when the government starts clawing billions spent back from us. I feel that our quality of life will be much worse (as a nation) than we realise. There is also brexit to add to it all. Has anyone got any positive views on this to share (and make me feel better?). Need some optimism desperately.

@Defenbaker

I also think that we'll see a roaring 20s type period, which will perk the economy up. Taxes will need to rise, that's inevitable, but hopefully the high earners will bear the brunt of it. We'll probably need Covid booster jabs every year or two, but life will approach normal by the end of this summer.

The NHS will be under a strain for a couple of years, while they try to clear the backlog of operations. I hope that some of the money saved by Brexit can be ploughed into the NHS, and be used to support the UK farming industry, so that we import less food and use our own labour. I think students could work on farms during the summer, and be taken to farms in buses, rather than have large numbers of immigrants moving to the UK each season before returning home, taking their money with them. (I can remember working as a strawberry picker when I was 15... we were all collected by a minibus and taken to the fields a few miles out of town. I think we received a few pence for every punnet we picked. I enjoyed it, but it's hard work, best done by youngsters, with strong backs.)

What money saved by brexit?

You know a lot of farmers rely on EU subsidies, right?

Plenty of youngsters go away on gap years abroad, and do all sorts of low paid jobs, so why not encourage them to work in the UK instead?

Yes great idea, let’s teach them all their place in society by forcing them into low paid manual and menial jobs that were so poorly valued we based the biggest political decision in a generation upon kicking out the people that did them. Bonus points that stopping young people from travelling the world, opening their minds, discovering who they are and who they want to be and experiencing different cultures might cement in them the narrow mindedness and cultural ineptitude which brought about Brexit in the first place.

Slow clap.

@Livelovebehappy

It’s our children who are going to face the brunt of this in years to come. To claw back the money paid out during the virus, raising the pension age is definitely on the cards. I reckon they’ll raise it to 75. I know people are living longer, but couldn’t imagine having to work til that age.

I don't see it being that long - it will be us, not just our children who will be hit by it. I fully expect the state pension age to be raised to 75 for anyone born after about 1966. Already due to rise to 67 by 2028 - expect that see that accelerated to 2025, and then raised by a year every 2 years subsequently (maybe not announced all at once). By 2041, a state pension ago of 75 will apply people born in 1966 or later (some of whom will be women who started working when the female retirement age was 60).

For our children's generation the state pension will become effectively irrelevant to their retirement age planning - just a bonus which cuts in some years into retirement.

My company's pension scheme already quotes figures based on an assumed retirement age of 75, and has done for several years!

I fully expect the state pension age to be raised to 75 for anyone born after about 1966

That won’t happen. The state pension age is linked to life expectancy and is done so in order to be politically and economically sustainable. The reason it went up is because it had been set at the same rate for so long that people were spending proportionately more time in retirement (and less time making contributions) than the system was designed to support (particularly women). Add onto that the boom in post war births which was followed by a drop in the birth rate, and we end up with a lower tax base from which to support growing liabilities (driven by increased size of cohort living who are all living longer).

The initiative for people to lead healthier lives for longer (+5 years healthy life expectancy) has been a flop, and you wouldn’t be able to increase state pension age without increasing the length of time that people are able to work (otherwise they all transfer onto UC / disability benefits which whilst much lower than those after 65, are still expensive). That’s why you’re seeing the “prevention” initiatives in recent healthcare white paper. It’s the best way to lower healthcare costs AND keep people working until closer to retirement age. At the moment the average person leaves the workforce around 3 years before they are able to claim their state pension, usually for health reasons.

The state pension age is linked to life expectancy

This is true; however if they did do it, and if there's an over all reduction in life expectancy because the NHS can no longer treat people adequately, the two could well end up meeting in the middle

Quite clever in its way - after all just think of all those who'd never get to claim the pension at all

I see where you’re coming from but I don’t think that’s what they’re aiming for!

NHS costs are increasing in part because of the size of the boomer cohort reaching old age, but also because medical advances allow people to live longer with chronic conditions than in the past (costing more over that period of time). The biggest cost to the government is poor levels of healthy life expectancy, the policy objective is to try to address that in order that people can work longer and cost the public purse less

By the way work longer means work closer to retirement age, not beyond it

If I have another shifting of my pension age I may explode ! (Or just die in harness).

Depends how old you are @HeronLanyon, the intention is to give at least ten years notice of any changes to those who will be affected. You can read more about it here:

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/630066/print-ready-state-pension-age-review-final-report.pdf

Totally agree with you about the healthy life expectancy and its cost implications, tawnytowel, and for me this is where our own choices and the difficulties around accepting mortality come into play

Obviously none of these issues are straightforward, but its not always easy to address them with a population that ageing and increasingly subject to conditions arising from lifetsyle choices, and where many seem to feel everyone can be cured of everything all the time

I honestly believe this will have to form part of the conversation as we move forward; as said it won't be easy, but it may have to happen all the same

@Puzzledandpissedoff exactly, it’s the same with workplace pensions. It used to be that everyone had a nice final salary pension that gave them a guaranteed income as long as they lived. Now it’s our responsibility to pay in and what we have left at the end has to last us.

Quite so, tawnytowel

[quote AnaisNun]@Defenbaker

Have you met any teenagers?
Do you really think they’ll want to go bloody STRAWBERRY PICKING for “pennies”, after they’ve been so hugely shafted? And moreover- so that the money “saved” by Brexit (?!?!) can be “ploughed into the NHS” - mostly to look after older people? Again?!

How much must our kids sacrifice for older generations to make you happy?[/quote]
Print that out and frame it. You may find it interesting to read in your old age.

"after they’ve been so hugely shafted?" good point. It was unfair of Boris to release a virus just so he'd have an excuse to pay people to sit at home posting on social media.

We need to vote for politicians who follow a more Keynesian economic model rather than for austerity.

Defenbaker
Realised you cannot be real when you got to "the money saved by brexit" - which is costing us billions. Then the buses full of jolly students being taken off to pick fruit.....
🤣Yeah, right.

Plenty of youngsters go away on gap years abroad, and do all sorts of low paid jobs, so why not encourage them to work in the UK instead?

Yes, teach the young scamps a lesson or two about giving back.
Stacking shelves in a Hounslow offie. What an experience!
Pull the other one.
The world is their oyster as much as it was yours and mine. Let them at least explore the world beyond before they're tied to this windswept rock for life.

We need to vote for politicians who follow a more Keynesian economic model rather than for austerity.

Do they even exist?? Don't get me wrong. I agree with you. But it seems to me like we're permanently suspended in a Friedmaniac crisis of one making or another by an unending set of 'leaders' and politicians who are hellbent on perpetuating Friedman's ideology.

@TableFlowerss

*MH is my worry too. In particular with regards to violent offenders - many of them are just getting worse in Lockdown and I’m terrified we’ll see a huge rise in random murders and violence*

@GrumpyHoonMain

You’re completely right!

It was already shocking before covid. I've seen someone stabbed outside my flat for goodness sakes.

As the subject of pensions has finally raised its head, has anyone considered how much the government will be saving now that we've lost so many over 65 to covid? Think it could run into billions.

Well the state pension is going up while working age benefits are going down, having previously been cut and then frozen for twelve years, so there's that.

In the spirit of wanting to add something positive rather than all the doom and gloom....

I too think we will have a bounce back roaring twenties effect...

People that have been waiting over the last 12 months to have parties - get married - go on holiday - make major renovations to their house - have a baby - move house - have a BBQ - buy a new car - you name it. Lots and lots of people are all just putting all these things off at the moment. Once we're allowed out there will be an initial explosion of people going out and doing stuff all the things that have been temporarily put on hold. Also the bars, cafe's and restaurants that have survived will all have a bumper season with people making up for lost time.

There a sign up in an empty shop unit in our town advertising a new Tapas bar that is due to open (you can see workmen inside getting it ready) I can't wait to try it!!

@Dramalady52 VERY crudely it's about £1billion per year, and but that's nothing compared to the £30 billion cost of the crisis and also all the lost tax revenue - think about how much fuel duty income has collapsed, and the business rates holiday for retail, all the profits not taxed from aviation/travel/hospitality.

I used to pick fruit as a teen, I quite liked it to be honest - it was nice to have extra money!

Has anyone considered how much the government will be saving now that we've lost so many over 65 to covid?

Yes I have , and if it occurred to joe public I'm sure government will have thought of it (and not just in pensions but ongoing health costs too)

It's hardly something they can mention publicly though - not when you consider what happened to Theresa May when she suggested seniors might use more of their savings for care

Spending on UK tourism and travel is likely to keep rising - from UK sources. This is a good thing. But it will not be enough: the UK economy, like any economy, is dependent on significant inflows from abroad (and outflows!). We cannot be self-sufficient economically, as we do not live in a gilded bubble.

The problem is, we have seen a zeroing of the otherwise massive inbound income from tourists from, say, the USA (10% of all incoming tourists to the UK are from there), France (10%), Germany (9%), and others like 550,000 EFL students every year (according to 2019 government stats here www.tourismalliance.com/downloads/TA_408_435.pdf). This is just a small example of the kind of income the country has lost - including the exchequer. Taxes on that income go towards paying for things like.....oh, yes. The NHS.