Revised retirement age

hugheskevi

I am amazed that people don't seem to know that some of us had our SRP age increased by 2.5 years when the retirement age increase from 65 to 66 was accelerated.

Are you sure about that? I thought the maximum increase was 18 months (eg, this link)?

kidmugsy

Linton wrote: »

But a lot is known - those people who will define life expectancy statistics for the next 50 years are alive now. Many people are dying early at the moment because they had a lifetime of smoking and work in unhealthy environments. People 10 years younger will have had less exposure to these high risk factors and so from current statistics can be confidently expected to live longer without any assumptions on future changes. The average life expectancy will continue to increase at least until those people alive during the years of heavy manual labour, heavily polluting industry and a high percentage of smokers only form a small % of the elderly population.

But that makes the assumption that nothing else will turn up. Since we don't know why heart disease rates rose and fell, we don't know that they won't rise again. Nor do we know what would happen if antibiotic-resistant bacteria came to dominate our lives. All you're doing is assuming that recent changes must continue. That's irrational.

mgdavid

kidmugsy wrote: »

......... All you're doing is assuming that recent changes must continue. That's irrational.

No it's not. it's based on observation of the past. You've picked out heart disease to supprot your point but that is but one of very many causes of death.

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

On visit to shop floor.

Welcome to ... We have a Sports an Social club, which will cost you 5p a week. A subsidised shop. We also have a Pension Fund, but if I were you lot I would not put a penny into it, because when you retire, there'll be nothing left in the pot.

Apprenticeship October 1978

seven-day-weekend

mumps wrote: »

It has changed again since then, I was due to retire at 62 and a bit and now won't be able to get my SRP until I am 64 years and 9 months exactly. I had no where near 15 years warning of the second change. I am amazed that people don't seem to know that some of us had our SRP age increased by 2.5 years when the retirement age increase from 65 to 66 was accelerated.

Yes, I did know that; it has affected a family member who was born in 1953, and the change was planned, it has just taken place quicker than originally planned.

It is fair that women get their SRP at the same age as men. Unfortunately some like yourself wil have to wait longer than they originally expected.

I never understood why the age for receiving State Retirement Pension was not the same in the first place.

Pollycat

mumps wrote: »

And I am sure they will be grateful, personally I would rather get my pension when I thought I was going to get it, roughtly 62 and a quarter I think.

Of course you would - because you'd have qualified for a full state pension under the old (42 years) rules anyway. :cool:

But it is as it is, I've already said that I agree with you that the 2nd change didn't give a lot of notice.

Linton

kidmugsy wrote: »

But that makes the assumption that nothing else will turn up. Since we don't know why heart disease rates rose and fell, we don't know that they won't rise again. Nor do we know what would happen if antibiotic-resistant bacteria came to dominate our lives. All you're doing is assuming that recent changes must continue. That's irrational.

Sure there are Armageddon scenarios which could cause massive rises in the death rate. That is the only thing that could prevent average life expectancy continuing to increase.

I am not assuming that changes continue to occur at the rate of the past say 50 years. The point I am making is that those past changes have only partially fed through to the life expectancy statistics. As those people who missed out on them die out average life expectancy will increase. It wont make any difference to those of us who have never smoked or done heavy manual work all our lives but it will increase the average.

Any advances in medical science will add to life expectancy, so offsetting to some extent the rather less likely in my view disaster possibilities.

mumps

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

Yes, I did know that; it has affected a family member who was born in 1953, and the change was planned, it has just taken place quicker than originally planned.

It is fair that women get their SRP at the same age as men. Unfortunately some like yourself wil have to wait longer than they originally expected.

I never understood why the age for receiving State Retirement Pension was not the same in the first place.

The change wasn't planned for women born in 1953. I had planned so that I could still retire at 60 after the original changes but in 2011 changes were announced that meant I had less than 3 years to make plans to cover that extra 2.5 years. That is really unrealistic and not possible for most people. It is not about fairness with men, it is about giving people time to make reasonable changes to their plans. For me it means I gave my employer fair warning that I would retire at 60, plans were made about how my role would be covered, someone was selected for training etc. Now I won't be in a position to retire at 60 so I will probably stay at work for an extra year. Is that fair to my employer, the person who was expecting promotion into my role?

The benefits for NI were always different, for example my husband always knew that if he died I would receive a widows pension, or widowed mother pension or whatever it was called. To ensure my family would get the same protection if I died I had to pay for an insurance policy to give my husband an income to help out. I assume there was some actuarial formula to work these things out. Obviously things have changed, lots of mothers aren't married these days, women generally work when they have children etc. When I started work there were twelve of us in an office, six men and six women. The men were paid nearly double what the women got, that wasn't unusual, sexual discrimination was quite normal, one of the few advantages for women was an earlier retirement.

I don't know how it worked in relation to couples getting a SRP, I know if a woman hadn't got enough "stamps" she could get a pension based on her husbands contributions but I don't know if that worked the other way round. It was also interesting after divorce, I knew a woman who had always paid the "small" stamp after she married so did not have enough to get a full pension. She got divorced and was credited for the years her husband had paid his stamp. She then got a full pension, a year later they remarried with a nice increase in their income. Funny old world.

mumps

Linton wrote: »

Sure there are Armageddon scenarios which could cause massive rises in the death rate. That is the only thing that could prevent average life expectancy continuing to increase.

I am not assuming that changes continue to occur at the rate of the past say 50 years. The point I am making is that those past changes have only partially fed through to the life expectancy statistics. As those people who missed out on them die out average life expectancy will increase. It wont make any difference to those of us who have never smoked or done heavy manual work all our lives but it will increase the average.

Any advances in medical science will add to life expectancy, so offsetting to some extent the rather less likely in my view disaster possibilities.

Aren't they predicting a reduction in life expectancy due to young people drinking more, being overweight, not being fit etc? I am sure I have read this somewhere but can't think where. I might google it later.

I suppose when the whole AIDS thing was in the news in the 80s people were expecting alot of people to die young, that seems to have been averted in the developed world. CJD was the other thing, weren't were all going to be dead by now with that if we had ever sniffed a beefburger.

Pollycat

mumps wrote: »

The change wasn't planned for women born in 1953. I had planned so that I could still retire at 60 after the original changes but in 2011 changes were announced that meant I had less than 3 years to make plans to cover that extra 2.5 years. That is really unrealistic and not possible for most people. It is not about fairness with men, it is about giving people time to make reasonable changes to their plans. For me it means I gave my employer fair warning that I would retire at 60, plans were made about how my role would be covered, someone was selected for training etc. Now I won't be in a position to retire at 60 so I will probably stay at work for an extra year. Is that fair to my employer, the person who was expecting promotion into my role?

I agree with this.

Very unfair to change the goalposts at such short notice.

I took early retirement at age 50 and had calculated that my state pension would kick in when i was 63 years and 6 months, now it will be 64 years and 9 months with - as mumps points out - very little time to plan for less anticipated income for 15 months.