retirement age

seven-day-weekend

To be absolutely accurate - anyone born after April 6th 1950 will get their State Pension later than their 60th birthday, albeit maybe only a few weeks/months later.

Luckily I was born in January 1950! :T :beer:

firesidemaid

Cook_County wrote:

IMHO we may have a case against the government should we wish to take them through the Courts because we all have pension forecasts clearly stating a retirement age that has retrospectively been changed - however I can't afford the legal costs even as far as the House of Lords, let alone the European Parliament, so yes I agree, my own planning is now kaput, but there is little any of us can do individually..

this is something that also bothers me. i also have an nhs pension and i have been working for 18 years this year - it looks like i will not get my state pension until ?at least 67.

this is 7 years later than when i originally started my retirement planning, and in the intervening years my financial decisions have been based on this. how can they just move the goalposts? it is almost that they are hoping many of us pop our cloggs before we make it that far.

as we all know, we need to start retirement planning ealier rather than later, but i can't turn the clock back 18 years - and i know this applies to all of us. i do think there is a case to answer to.:mad:

tanith

My understanding of the reasons behind this is that there simply will not be enough people working to pay everyone a pension when they reach pensionable age unless they move the goal posts now... so is it not better that they are doing something now rather than later.... I am sure there will be those they know a better way of doing it...:T

jamesd

There is a solution, though: have more children so the ratio of workers to retired doesn't change. This may be a little impractical. Second best is to encourage lots of immigration to get the younger people that way.

Cook_County

I think you are saying that the goverments actuaries got the figures wrong for many many years, but the rest of us have to pay for their mistakes.

There is a case to answer here, because the government is changing the game from football with goalposts to a marathon where everyone is forced to run in different directions.

Perhaps we should go back to Attlee & Beveridge (the 1945 government for those not schooled in the history of these things) and try to work out why they thought an unfunded promise based on part of the overall tax each person pays was an appropriate method of funding.

Mrs_pbradley936

I am by no means an expert on this but I can read and what I have read is that there are two ways to finance pensions and these are funded schemes where people invest their own money (or somebody does so on their behalf) and they are paid according to what they have contributed.
Then there is the Pay As You Go scheme which is the State scheme which relies upon the receipts of the current National Insurance contributions to pay pensions. I remember reading that actuaries have known about this for years but politicians have always ducked the issue because they are concerned with what will happen within the short term rather than 20 years hence. Mathematics will give an answer but that answer will not take “value judgements” into account. Whereas politics takes little but value judgements into account.

Mrs_pbradley936

Wordweb gives the following definition for a value judgement:-

An assessment that reveals more about the values of the person making the assessment than about the reality of what is assessed.

jamesd

pbradley936, right, except the NI money is paying for the people who are retired now, not for you when you retire. It's effectively a pyramid game that we are all forced to participate in.

dunstonh

jamesd wrote:

There is a solution, though: have more children so the ratio of workers to retired doesn't change. This may be a little impractical. Second best is to encourage lots of immigration to get the younger people that way.

And what has the Govt been giving financial incentives for over the last few years?

Any why doesnt the Govt really act on immigration?

missile

Cook_County wrote:

Perhaps we should go back to Attlee & Beveridge (the 1945 government for those not schooled in the history of these things) and try to work out why they thought an unfunded promise based on part of the overall tax each person pays was an appropriate method of funding.

I doubt Attlee & Beveridge care much anymore :rotfl: