Pension age worries

[Loobylou_82]

My DH does a physical job, a joiner on a building sites, he is 61 and says he is struggling now. Says he can’t run up a flight of stairs carrying a fire door like he use too and his knees and back are giving him jip. He only has to work till 66 , says he definitely couldn’t work past that and will probably retire when he is 63/64. So how would he get on if he had to work till 70/75 ? He would be knackered. He also has trouble with his shoulder and arm.
Plus what happens if you suffer with ill health anyway? Lots of people have had heart attacks and strokes etc in their 60’s would they have to carry on? No doubt the public sector would have to have their early retirement age moved up from 55/60 to perhaps 65/70 for their pensions.?

[Mr Tom Morrow]

I will be 66 before my State Pension kicks in. Maybe

I do see both sides of the coin though ref those who contribute and those who don't.
My Dad retired from the Police aged 58 and never even made it to the State apension age dying when he was 64.

My Mum had to resign when she got married in 1951 and never worked again until she died in 2015 aged 93. So the Govt never got a penny from her but still paid her State Pension, winter fuel allowance and eventually a small allowance for her poor health.

So the Govt sometimes wins and sometimes loses. However the system has become unsustainable

[JLH]

Originally Posted by Rac20

There’s no way I could teach until I’m that age. And who would want a 70 year old teacher? 🙄

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I work in a nursery and holiday club and struggle at times doing 40/50 hours a week and I am only 50 ! There is no way I could do it at 70 or even 68 or whatever age I am expected to work at now.

[Guest]

Originally Posted by floridasarah

I was born in 1967, I have already had my state pension raised to 67. I can get my NHS penison at 60. I will work on part time if my health allows it but working until 70 I bet I will just be in the age group they move to 70.

Saying that my Dad worked until he was 70 in a physical job.

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I think I worked it out to had to be born in 1966 to avoid retirement age of 75 - if the proposals are taken forward.

This is a think tank proposition not a govt one is one consolation (at the moment !)

[Mr Tom Morrow]

I could certainly do the little job that the late Richard did. Was still there aged 92, wow.
Now that would be nice.

[Tinkerbell]

Retired on my nursing pension at 55yrs.
State pension in Five years. We sold up in the U.K., banked the money, bought here.

We did this because, we knew that retiring in the U.K. was going to be unsustainable for the future and having worked for 35 years plus I had no intention of living in poverty struggling to pay ridiculous prices for food and council taxes. The other motivation was my husbands business partner had planned to retire at 60 to France, worked hard etc. Died aged 48 from a brain tumour. It made us realise life is for living. We could not retire early in the U.K. that’s why we are here

[Labboy]

The plan is to make people keep working, paying tax and national insurance then for you to die on the job so they don’t have to pay out any pension. In other words work you till you drop.

[sam_b]

All of my focus is on planning for my stopping work in 6 years time (at 55). I think that there is a big difference between retirement - drawing a pension - and stopping work.
I know that I won’t be able to access my pensions for a long time ( 65 for my company pensions and 67 currently for state pension). So my focus is on amassing enough money to live on in the interim. To that end I have paid off the mortgage, we are doing all of the big house improvements we need (new boiler, new bathrooms, new kitchen, new windows, new fascias etc all in last few years). The rest of my money goes into isas and investments.

We know that we have to plan for at least 10 years without income, and we have worked out how much we need per annum (inc holidays etc) and as soon as we hit the amount that will allow us to live those years - we will stop. (A kind of draw down plan). My main concern is riding out the inevitable economic crash that is coming and capitalising on it as much as possible.

Financial planning is complex, and so personal and it takes a lot of time - but it’s so important. Balancing between jam today and jam tomorrow is the hardest thing.

[WhereIBelong]

The thing that gets me most - cynically I guess - is that someone somewhere must have worked out that Labour is currently SO unelectable that the ruling powers can push this as "an idea" - hidden slightly by the Brexit woe-are-us-leak of course, then in a few weeks/months they will put out an alteration... "of course we can't have people working to 75, we are working on 72 as the absolute maximum..."

just like last time with 70 being muted and 67 being actual...

[Omega1]

The government has probably factored into their calculations that as the the state pension age increases so does the number of people who are physically not able to do their existing job or work at all. Whilst reducing the burden of state pension payments, it will inevitably add to the cost of sickness benefits.
Currently, a new claimant cannot claim disability benefits after state pension age - as people get older, physical and mental impairment rise significantly- therefore raising the state pension age will inevitably lead to a rise in disability claimants. Currently, someone claiming sickness and disability benefits could quite easily have an income greater than a state pension payment. Consequently, it would be interesting to see the global benefit projections that the government has undertaken rather than just focusing on the state pension will not be sustainable rhetoric.