Do you think you'll be able to work till you're 68?

Paul_Herring

nearlyrich wrote:

When I started working fulltime I was entitled to retire at 60, it was moved to 65 and now I think it will be 66 for me. If a major insurance company moved the goalposts like that there would be an outcry.

Is this a personal pension you're talking about or the state pension?

nearlyrich

Paul_Herring wrote:

Is this a personal pension you're talking about or the state pension?

Yes it's the state pension I was talking about.

Paul_Herring

nearlyrich wrote:

Yes it's the state pension I was talking about.

So, as has previously been pointed out, if you're relying on the state pension for all of your income, you're !!!!!!ed, but if you have your own pension the 'state retirement age' has !!!!!! all to do with your retirement plans (except perhaps the pittance the state will be offering by then.)

<tangent>
This pension 'crisis' seems to be misrepresented by the general press. "You can't retire until you're 66/67/etc" is clearly false since the age being mentioned is the age at which you receive your state pension. All of the waffling going on at the moment appears to me to have no reflection on when you can receive a personal pension (which I do realise has been raised from 50 to 55)" - why are the press lumping together all pensions and implying (falsely) that you *cannot*take*any*pension*until*68*?
</tangent>

(On preview I note that I have a word has been twice replaced by !!!!'s - the word in question starts with a b followed by a u, 2 g's and an er at the end.)

margaretclare

Paul_Herring wrote:

So, as has previously been pointed out, if you're relying on the state pension for all of your income, you're !!!!!!ed, but if you have your own pension the 'state retirement age' has !!!!!! all to do with your retirement plans (except perhaps the pittance the state will be offering by then.)

Well, it's even more complex than that, Paul. For a start, there's the view that a lot of people have, that if they have only the state pension they will 'get everything' but if they have private provision they won't and will therefore have to spend their remaining years envying their neighbours who 'never saved but now have everything given to them, it's not worth saving, we should have spent it all.....whinge, whinge, whinge'.

There's also the fact that you can draw state pension and still go on working, assuming you can find work that you can do and an employer that will allow it. This is likely to become more of an accepted scenario as time passes and there are fewer younger people compared with older people, the ratio alters in other words. There's also the fact that you can defer taking state pension for a few years and possibly get a better deal ultimately. This would possibly benefit those women who're in careers with a final salary pay-out at age 65, they can continue working for another 5 years, defer state pension and get a better deal at the end.

(On preview I note that I have a word has been twice replaced by !!!!'s - the word in question starts with a b followed by a u, 2 g's and an er at the end.)

Yes, I think everyone will understand that, Paul!!!

Margaret Clare

Dora_the_Explorer_5

new_leaf wrote:

I'm visualising me working till I'm 68 - not a cheery picture. Will I have a hearing aid, walking stick and a crabby nature :mad: or will I be one of the ones who look 38, go jogging and zip through Mensa puzzles? Who knows?

Out of four neighbours, 2 in early 70s, 2 in mid 60's, three are still working part time from choice, the other one totally retired from choice.

The retirement age of 65 was set during the unification of the small German states around 1860, when very few people lived to that age. The UK set retirement at 65 when again, few people lived to that age.

We're all living longer, and have better health for longer, why not work longer ? Nurses could perhaps move over to ward admin etc, just as people under 65 who can't physically do a particular job do one they can.

Plenty of people under 65 don't have good hearing, have mobility problems, are miserable b******s - those things are not age related :rotfl:

Don't worry, you'll feel much the same at 60/70/80 as you did at 20/30/40 :T

Ted_Hutchinson

If you look at the people currently claiming Incapacity Benefit you will see that those over the age of 50 account for about half the current total.
All Ages 2,387.000
Under 20 39.200
20 - 24 119.700
25 - 29 116.800
30 - 34 171.500
35 - 39 228.200
40 - 44 273.800
45 - 49 297.500
50 - 54 353.100
55 - 59 486.500
60 - 64 300.500
The reason the number drops over 60 is because women currently don't have to work over 60 in the age group just before 60 there were 258,600 men and 227,900 women so the figure, should it include women over 60 on IB would be approaching 600,000.

So in my view increasing the retirement age will simply increase the numbers claiming IB unless the government decides to spend a lot more time and money on the prevention of chronic conditions.

Do we see any evidence they are prepared to crack down on food manufacturers supplying unhealthy foods?

Do we see the government taking steps to reduce the number of breast, prostate, colon, ovarian, cancer or MS by changing the dangerously misguided sunsmart policy ?

Do we see any signs this administration are prepared to adopt sensible RDA's for Vitamin C to prevent Cardiac arrests?

I suspect this is one more example of this government putting the needs of industy and profit before the best interests of the individual citizen.

homersimpson_3

Do we see the government taking steps to reduce the number of breast, prostate, colon, ovarian, cancer or MS by changing the dangerously misguided sunsmart policy ? Do we see any signs this administration are prepared to adopt sensible RDA's for Vitamin C to prevent Cardiac arrests?

Please explain -what is sunsmart policy? why is it misguided? why are rda for vitamin c not sensible and why would not sensible ones cause heart attacks?

EdInvestor

I wouldn't extrapolate too much from the incapacity benefit figures.At present there are many people on this benefit who were made redundant in the 1980s during the demise of the "sunset industries" mainly in the North and scotland.Many of these people were unable to retrain for "sunrise" industries, even if there were any such jobs in the industrial towns they lived in (which there usually wreren't.)The IB figures are in many respect disguided unemployment, but involving a "one-off" group of people, not "structural".

Once this "bulge" of IB claimants start claiming pensions and fall out of the figures, the overall numbers should fall quite a lot on a permanent basis. One should mention there is some concern that the numbers of other younger people claiming IB are growing faster than expected - something that David Blunkett was supposed to tackle before he fell of his perch.

Ted_Hutchinson

homersimpson wrote:

Please explain -what is sunsmart policy? why is it misguided? why are rda for vitamin c not sensible and why would not sensible ones cause heart attacks?

SunSmart - Home says S pend time in the shade between 11 and 3 but we know that the ratio of uvb to uva rays is highest at noon, so to get sufficient vitamin d by synthesis through your skin the best advice is to get outside, without sunblock/sunscreen for a SHORT while (particuarly at the moment) around noon. That way you will get MORE UVB (for vit d) for fewer destructive UVA rays.
SeeThe Vitamin D miracle
SUNARC - Sunlight, Nutrition And Heath Research Center
[SIZE=-2][PDF][/SIZE] SUNLIGHT ROBBERY:

With regard to vitamin C see [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The Master Nutrient
Ridiculous Daily Allowance
Bill Sardi


The current limits for vit d and vit c are set by panels of experts primarily from the PHARMaceutical industry. By using suboptimal levels more people are made ill and more prescriptions for expensive medicines are sold.
When you can see Cancer drugs for £20000 per person per year for Breast Cancer why would anyone want to promote Vitamin D, which you can get for free from the sun or for pence from supplements. 40% of breast cancers would be prevented if girls between the age of 10 & 19 spent more time regularly outdoors getting the sun on their skin and not covered with clothing or sunblock but NOT EVER getting SUNBURNT.
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Ted_Hutchinson

EdInvestor wrote:

I wouldn't extrapolate too much from the incapacity benefit figures.

You're kidding yourself if you fail to take seriously the fact that as people get older they are more prone to disabling conditions.
Take arthritis and you see
Young adults (aged 25-44):
Hand OA: 80,000; knee OA: 27,000; hip OA: 18,000
Middle-aged adults (aged 45-64):
Hand OA: 1.4 million; knee OA: 91,000; hip OA: 31,400
Elderly (aged 65+):
Hand OA: 2.9 million; knee OA: 370,000; hip OA: 154,000
The older you get the more likely you are to suffer from it.
Percentage of people with a limiting long-term illness by age and ethnic group, England and Wales Census
........................White Asian Black Mixed Chinese
age 0-15.................4.......4......5 ..... 5 ...... 3
16-49....................10.....10.....10.......11,......5
50-64....................26......40 .....34.....32.......22
65 and over............51.....60.......54.....49......48

While I accept there is a bulge in the statistics resulting from the baby boom in the 10years after the WW2 that will have an impact on the numbers currently getting IB who will be moving to pension age the underlying trend for MORE people in the older ages being disabled is inevitable and a failure to take this into account is misguided.