State pension age to rise to 66 for men from 2016

worldtraveller

The government is to confirm plans to raise the state pension age for men to 66 from 2016.

Ministers will also raise the possibility of extending it further, perhaps to 70 and beyond in the following decades.

Plans to scrap the default retirement age will also be announced.

This will be the first big announcement by the coalition team running pensions policy - Secretary of State Iain Duncan Smith and pensions minister Steve Webb.

They will say they want to legislate soon for the state pension age for men to be raised to 66 from 2016.

BBC News

C_Mababejive

Great...An opportunity to earn even more money..

Harry_Powell

In this age of equal equality, why is this only impacting men? I can see lines of angry women marching on Downing Street deamnding their equal rights.

Oh, hold on.

lostinrates

Harry_Powell wrote: »

In this age of equal equality, why is this only impacting men? I can see lines of angry women marching on Downing Street deamnding their equal rights.

Oh, hold on.

Actually, I thought the same thing.

C_Mababejive

Its ok..the men will mostly die young or their wives will divorce them so the men will need to work and the women will not need to work longer as they will be quids in having ripped off OHs pension.

lostinrates

Anther question: rather than just retirement age, why isn't a calculation of years in work condiered? i.e. years as a tax payer? ..or is it already?

tomterm8

It is impacting women too, but they have already had their pension raised from 60 to 63 over the same period, and so they are delaying it a few years to allow people to plan. The intention is to equalise pension age sooner than expected.

lostinrates wrote: »

Anther question: rather than just retirement age, why isn't a calculation of years in work condiered? i.e. years as a tax payer? ..or is it already?

You are not eligable for the full state pension unless you have enough years of national insurance contributions... so, years in work or looking after children or sick relatives etc are part of the plan already.

lostinrates

tomterm8 wrote: »

It is impacting women too, but they have already had their pension raised from 60 to 63 over the same period, and so they are delaying it a few years to allow people to plan. The intention is to equalise pension age sooner than expected.

Women have enjoyed equal rights for a long time. Unless we want to accept less in pension, or stop fighting the glass ceilings that exist for our sex we should accept this equalisation immediately too IMO.

tomterm8

lostinrates wrote: »

Women have enjoyed equal rights for a long time. Unless we want to accept less in pension, or stop fighting the glass ceilings that exist or our sex we should accept this equalisation immediately too IMO.

The reason for the delay is not so much what women 'accept', it is that changing the compulsory retirement age has quite large effects on private pension terms. It takes quite a while for private pension plans to adjust investment strategies and etc to respond to such a change. The extra 4 years is necessary for businesses to review necessary changes in pension provisions, and contributions.

lostinrates

tomterm8 wrote: »

You are not eligable for the full state pension unless you have enough years of national insurance contributions... so, years in work or looking after children or sick relatives etc are part of the plan already.

You now I thought of that as soon as I'd typed it but it still seems o me someone who has slogged since 16 somehow more deserving of a pension at 65 (like my dad) than someone who settled into a high income job later in life and can pay the contributions (like dh, or indeed.me who has none nowt or a long time). As it happens DH probably will not top up his contributions but I probably will.

i8change

Originally Posted by Harry Powell
In this age of equal equality, why is this only impacting men?

It is bad enough that all these years after the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 there is still purposeful discrimination with regards to men and the State Pension, especially as men have a lower life expectancy. I understood that this was only allowed to continue as women had planned to retire at 60 and required reasonable time to adjust.

With this in mind, how is it possible that the Goverment, at very short notice, are considering upping the pension age to 66 for males by 2016? They won't even have got the female retirement age to the current male one of 65 till 2020!

This is outrageous gender biased discrimination, with absolutely no justification. We all pay the same taxes so deserve equal and fair access to benefits such as pensions. :mad:

Hopefully they won't get away with it:-

http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/pensions-italy.406

In June 2009, the Commission issued a letter of formal notice because Italy had not adopted any new legislation complying with the judgement. In its reply to the Commission, Italy communicated new provisions that would phase in an equal pensionable age for staff working in public service by 2018. Under the provisions, the retirement age for female employees would increase gradually and only be equalised at the same age as men – whose legal retirement age is fixed at 65 – in 2018.
In the Commission's view, and according to EU case law, this transitional measure continues to apply discriminatory treatment and is therefore inadequate. The Commission has therefore decided to issue an additional letter of formal notice to Italy under Art 260(1) TFEU asking the Italian authorities to comply with the judgement.