State Pension Costs

kennyboy66_2

Generali wrote: »

It's a good point. Governments seem to have refused even to recognise there is a problem.

BTW the article refers to a GBP4,000,000,000,000 unfunded liability!

I think by raising the age to 68 and making equal men & womens retirement ages, that at least there is some recognition. However it is being done ridiculously slowly.

I would also start the move to 70 as a retirement age now maybe by increasing the retirement age by 1 or 2 months each year (if it was 2 months, a man aged 53 now would have to work to 67).

I would also increase employers compulsory retirement age to 70.

kennyboy66_2

JoolzS wrote: »

I wonder if anyone who posts a rant about pensions in the UK has any actual knowledge. Both myself (currently aged 42) and my DH (currently aged 48) will not be entitled to claimed a state funded old-aged pension until we are 67! And that is both of us - I don't get five years off just because I'm a woman.

Stop whinging about people claiming pensions at age 65 when the government is already doing something about it!

Julie

I thought that as you will be 66 in 2033 and you partner will be 66 in 2027 you will both retire at 66

http://www.thepensionservice.gov.uk/state-pension/age-calculator.asp

vigilaire

If the retirement age is raised to 68 or 70 that will be good news for those on benefits as presumably they can still claim for longer.

Generali

kennyboy66 wrote: »

I think by raising the age to 68 and making equal men & womens retirement ages, that at least there is some recognition. However it is being done ridiculously slowly.

I would also start the move to 70 as a retirement age now maybe by increasing the retirement age by 1 or 2 months each year (if it was 2 months, a man aged 53 now would have to work to 67).

I would also increase employers compulsory retirement age to 70.

When the state pension was first brought in I think the life expectancy at retirement was measured in months not years (18 of them perhaps?) and the majority of workers wouldn't expect to make it to retirement.

I think what you're saying makes sense. I'd scrap any compulsory retirement age myself and have it like the drivers license - if you're still competent you can still work although some sort of measure of competency would be required.

LittleMissAspie

CLAPTON wrote: »

ps. baby boomers grow up in unheated houses (no central heating); ice on the INSIDE of the windows in winter, walked everywhere (no cars), simple seaonal only food (nothing imported), few restaurants (no Indian, chinese, french etc), no foreign holidays (no holidays at all for most), 5% only going to Uni, no gap years, no mobiles, no internet, no cheap flights......

I think you're confusing baby boomers with pensioners. My parents grew up like you describe but they are 68 and 71.

My boyfriend's parents are baby boomers though, in their mid 50s I think. They most certainly had holidays, both went to university, and your comments on food are pretty wrong: http://www.eatwell.gov.uk/healthydiet/seasonsandcelebrations/howweusedtoeat/1960s/

"The growth of air travel meant fruit and vegetables could be flown in. Tomatoes from the Canary Islands became available during the winter. Avocados began to appear in the shops."
"By the mid-1960s, immigrants from Hong Kong had set up Chinese restaurants and takeaways in almost every large and medium-sized town in England."

CLAPTON

LittleMissAspie wrote: »

I think you're confusing baby boomers with pensioners. My parents grew up like you describe but they are 68 and 71.

My boyfriend's parents are baby boomers though, in their mid 50s I think. They most certainly had holidays, both went to university, and your comments on food are pretty wrong: http://www.eatwell.gov.uk/healthydiet/seasonsandcelebrations/howweusedtoeat/1960s/

"The growth of air travel meant fruit and vegetables could be flown in. Tomatoes from the Canary Islands became available during the winter. Avocados began to appear in the shops."
"By the mid-1960s, immigrants from Hong Kong had set up Chinese restaurants and takeaways in almost every large and medium-sized town in England."

Baby boomers are generally consider to be the people born after WW2 the exact range is a bit vague but lets take the next 20 years

ww2 end in 1945 so we are talking about people born 1945 to 1965
they would now be aged between 44 and 64 . This of course is a very age large range. The earlier born people would have experienced food rationing that later born would just about be entering the age of plenty.

Now if you are basing your views on the experinces of your BF parents then ask them what their own parents did for a living.
If they are aged 55 now, then they went to Uni in 1972 .. at that time about 5% of the population went to Uni... they were very definitely NOT your average person. If they went on foreign holidays as children then they were NOT your average person. If their parent have a car then they were NOT your average person although cars were becoming very much more common.
Similarly central heating didn't take off until natural gas was introduced in the late 60s

Your quotes about food date from the mid 60s and yes by then there were a few chinese / indian restaurants and people were starting to go on foreign holidays and started wanting Italian food etc etc.

But that time we are talking about the end of the baby boomers.

Anyway I absolutely agree they had a very privileged life... health, wealth, choice, travel, peace (in western europe anyway) opportunity .....

in fact just like the succeeding generations and the present one.
The wealth and opportunities for the present generation even in these difficult time is simply awesome.. it's for them to use their opportunities for themselves and society and the planet.

bumpoowee

CLAPTON wrote: »

bizarre

Baby boomers were those born 1945 to (say) 1955) so they are currrently aged between 54 to 64 ish give or take a bit.

If you believe that state pension and state education will be abolished by the time you come to retire then that will be the responsibility of YOUR generation... grow up and take responsibility for yourself and of your parents, your children and future of the planet.

ps. baby boomers grow up in unheated houses (no central heating); ice on the INSIDE of the windows in winter, walked everywhere (no cars), simple seaonal only food (nothing imported), few restaurants (no Indian, chinese, french etc), no foreign holidays (no holidays at all for most), 5% only going to Uni, no gap years, no mobiles, no internet, no cheap flights......

now tell me how hard done by you are by these parasites...

Oh yes I am only too aware that 30 years ago you all had rocks for breakfast and sticks for dinner, walked 3 miles in the snow every day because it was still the ice age and it took a week to travel from london to edinburgh because the wheel hadn't been invented yet.

Your misleading nonsense is worthy of a politician. My children will take mobile phones, ipods and satellite navigation for granted. Your parents had to write letters because they didnt have a telephone (ok i didn't research that but same concept). Technology improves over time -get over it.

Some things however should remain constant - affordable accomodation, pensions, entitlement to education* and a realistic expectation of being able to retire being notable examples. It is these constants that the baby boomers have benefited from in general and that they are pulling out from under the feet of their children.

*Yes I know far fewer people went to University a few decades ago. But I wouldn't have needed a degree to get my current job back then either, so this is a duff argument.

CLAPTON

bumpoowee wrote: »

Oh yes I am only too aware that 30 years ago you all had rocks for breakfast and sticks for dinner, walked 3 miles in the snow every day because it was still the ice age and it took a week to travel from london to edinburgh because the wheel hadn't been invented yet.

Your misleading nonsense is worthy of a politician. My children will take mobile phones, ipods and satellite navigation for granted. Your parents had to write letters because they didnt have a telephone (ok i didn't research that but same concept). Technology improves over time -get over it.

Some things however should remain constant - affordable accomodation, pensions, entitlement to education* and a realistic expectation of being able to retire being notable examples. It is these constants that the baby boomers have benefited from in general and that they are pulling out from under the feet of their children.

*Yes I know far fewer people went to University a few decades ago. But I wouldn't have needed a degree to get my current job back then either, so this is a duff argument.

Why do you say they have pulled the rug from under the feet of their children?
What specifically would you have wanted them to do differently?
What specifically have those born after 1965 done that so much much better that those born before?
What specifically are you doing now that's so much better that the baby boomers did?

treliac

kennyboy66 wrote: »

I think by raising the age to 68 and making equal men & womens retirement ages, that at least there is some recognition. However it is being done ridiculously slowly.

I would also start the move to 70 as a retirement age now maybe by increasing the retirement age by 1 or 2 months each year (if it was 2 months, a man aged 53 now would have to work to 67).

I would also increase employers compulsory retirement age to 70.

Where are all these jobs going to come from then? Unless really good economic times come along (and how likely is this huh?) there aren't going to be a surfeit of jobs across all age groups. Many companies already consider you over the hill by or around the age of 40.

The prospect of the average 'oldie' working to their late 60s or more seems pretty unrealistic to me.

treliac

CLAPTON wrote: »

Why do you say they have pulled the rug from under the feet of their children?
What specifically would you have wanted them to do differently?
What specifically have those born after 1965 done that so much much better that those born before?
What specifically are you doing now that's so much better that the baby boomers did?

It's the generational politics of envy. There are the rich and poor, well-educated and ill-educated, lucky and unlucky, positive and negative, sensible and stupid amongst all generations.

To measure someone from one stratum of the population against someone from another, regardless of whichever decade was their heyday, is disingenuous and pointless.