revert the pension age to 60/65

N1AK

nuttybrowneyes wrote: »

anyone agree

No.


__________

mumps

Pollycat wrote: »

I bet the OP didn't expect the replies posted so far. :rotfl:

I would really love to have my State pension paid later this year when I reach 60.

But, I've known about the change for many years and understand the reasoning behind the need for change in State retirement age.

You have known about the first change for years, not the second. I am also 60 later this year and would love to be able to retire. I think it would be good if there was some recognition of how long your working life is. I started work at 15, my kids have all been to or are going to university and have started work at 21 or 22 so I think that should be reflected as well, particularly when you think of people who have done hard physical labour all their lives (not that I have but I know men who have and are burnt out before 65.)

mumps

margaretclare wrote: »

We didn't get the OP back to explain what he/she means, what has been stolen, why he/she wants a backward step.

I think it is fairly obvious, they have paid NI for their working life and will lose the money they would have received between 60 and 65/66. For example in my case I will be in receipt of my SRP at 64 years 9 months. My SRP is worth £140 a week so I am going to lose the £7280 a year for 4.75 years, which by my reckoning comes to nearly £35,000. :eek:

Not only that I will also have to wait till 64 years 9 months for things like bus pass and WFA. Quite funny when people who got pension at 60 and now moan if people suggest they lose the bus pass or WFA which is quite small in comparison.

We are all in this together, but some of us are more in it than others. Savings have to be made but I do think they could be more evenly spread.

redbuzzard

Many of us have had our expectations revised for us, by SRA changes or occupational scheme benefit reductions, and the principal underlying cause is the same - affordability.

As this is essentially a rant thread, I'll rant on behalf of the post-boomer generations.

As a youth I read a lot of science fiction. Visions of the future, the pleasant ones anyway, had it that people would work less, not more; machines would do most of the work. The mass of people are now further from that than they were 40 years ago.

SWMBO and I were fortunate, on my modest stipend, that we could afford for one of us (her as it happened, but I'm not saying it has to be a woman's job) to be at home with the children; and that we could buy a decent house on a mortgage. There are now very few households in the form of that once traditional family unit.

Somehow we managed to make it the norm for both married or cohabiting adults with children to work. Has it made them all better off?

Not at all - it's harder now for two to buy the house than it was for one of them in 1977 when we bought our first. In the 70s, home loans were doled out like Oliver Twist's porridge - reluctantly and in small portions. Building societies were usually three months behind with their monthly allocations. But lo, banks came into the market and it was easy to get a mortgage.

Marvellous! Except that the consequence was rampant house price inflation that just mopped up all the extra wages of economic growth to pay back the loose money - enriching my generation by boosting equity, and impoverishing the next. Capital had, in effect, reorganised itself to strip labour of its luxuries and in the inevitable way that Marx observed, better accumulate all the the surpluses to itself.

In return the increasing number at the bottom of the heap were given welfare benefits, making them dependent on state handouts.

Some people always worked unsocial hours, but there were enough diurnal, 5 day a week jobs jobs for those who preferred them. Now we have a 24 hour economy and millions have no option than to work evenings and weekends, disrupting family life. What has Sunday opening really achieved?

Even if we have been clobbered, compared with our children we have in my opinion had the best of it. I was 24 when I got married, and bought a house. My daughter is getting married this year at 32. My son still lives in a shared rental at 28.

How can it be that that it now takes two people earning the average wage to manage what we could do with one?

I can certainly find plenty to moan about if I want, but on balance I feel very lucky - my parents and grandparents lived through world wars (two for the grandparents), and our children will find it much harder than we did.

Moaning, I find, doesn't make me any happier either...and I'll be amazed if anybody has read this far.

mumps

redbuzzard wrote: »

Many of us have had our expectations revised for us, by SRA changes or occupational scheme benefit reductions, and the principal underlying cause is the same - affordability.

As this is essentially a rant thread, I'll rant on behalf of the post-boomer generations.

As a youth I read a lot of science fiction. Visions of the future, the pleasant ones anyway, had it that people would work less, not more; machines would do most of the work. The mass of people are now further from that than they were 40 years ago.

SWMBO and I were fortunate, on my modest stipend, that we could afford for one of us (her as it happened, but I'm not saying it has to be a woman's job) to be at home with the children; and that we could buy a decent house on a mortgage. There are now very few households in the form of that once traditional family unit.

Somehow we managed to make it the norm for both married or cohabiting adults with children to work. Has it made them all better off?

Not at all - it's harder now for two to buy the house than it was for one of them in 1977 when we bought our first. In the 70s, home loans were doled out like Oliver Twist's porridge - reluctantly and in small portions. Building societies were usually three months behind with their monthly allocations. But lo, banks came into the market and it was easy to get a mortgage.

Marvellous! Except that the consequence was rampant house price inflation that just mopped up all the extra wages of economic growth to pay back the loose money - enriching my generation by boosting equity, and impoverishing the next. Capital had, in effect, reorganised itself to strip labour of its luxuries and in the inevitable way that Marx observed, better accumulate all the the surpluses to itself.

In return the increasing number at the bottom of the heap were given welfare benefits, making them dependent on state handouts.

Some people always worked unsocial hours, but there were enough diurnal, 5 day a week jobs jobs for those who preferred them. Now we have a 24 hour economy and millions have no option than to work evenings and weekends, disrupting family life. What has Sunday opening really achieved?

Even if we have been clobbered, compared with our children we have in my opinion had the best of it. I was 24 when I got married, and bought a house. My daughter is getting married this year at 32. My son still lives in a shared rental at 28.

How can it be that that it now takes two people earning the average wage to manage what we could do with one?

I can certainly find plenty to moan about if I want, but on balance I feel very lucky - my parents and grandparents lived through world wars (two for the grandparents), and our children will find it much harder than we did.

Moaning, I find, doesn't make me any happier either...and I'll be amazed if anybody has read this far.

I did.

I think the thing with affording to buy a house is a difficult one. I bought my first house in 1973 when I was 19, it was a wreck and I do mean a wreck, my mother cried when she saw it. We did it up, but no central heating, no double glazing, just nicely decorated but pretty basic. We needed a 20% deposit I think, maybe because it was in such bad condition, and we borrowed 3 times my husbands wage but I had to work as interest rates were so high, 15% at one point. We made money on it, even though prices generally had fallen when we sold it but that was because it was in such a state when we bought it.

I just looked at houses in that road and for someone doing job my OH did then it would be more like 4 times their salary, maybe 4.5 times but interest rates are much lower and the houses for sale now do have central heating and double glazing as well as nice modern kitchens that I would only have dreamt of.

My third child graduated last year, just finished a year of mixed work and post grad study and looking at saving hard for next six months and buying first home, probably a flat. I know it is nearly impossible in London and SE but for other areas it is possible and if it was a couple buying it would be easy. To be honest I think London was pretty impossible in 1973 anyway for young couples like we were.

My father and my husband always worked unsocial hours so for me that is no real change. Would I want to go back to the 1950s with nothing open on a Sunday? No I wouldn't. I like being able to shop when I want and unsocial hours suit some people.

My children have definitely had it easier than I did but I admit that to a great extent I made life harder for myself by marrying at 17 and having 4 children. Mine are all out of teens and none decided to follow my example with early marriage and so far the ones who have children have limited that to 2.

We are lucky but that doesn't mean the OP is wrong to feel bad about what they are losing. I don't know anything about them but as I said before some people have done hard physical work for 50 years and deserve a break.

redbuzzard

mumps wrote: »

I did.

I think the thing with affording to buy a house is a difficult one. I bought my first house in 1973 when I was 19, it was a wreck and I do mean a wreck, my mother cried when she saw it. We did it up, but no central heating, no double glazing, just nicely decorated but pretty basic.

You were lucky;)

Yes mumps, we bought a wreck too in 1977, though it didn't seem to matter - gas fire in the sitting room, paraffin heater in the bathroom, draughty windows- maybe the years have dimmed the memory, but I still think heated bedrooms are unhealthy!

There were two new things in the house when we moved in, the sitting room carpet (the cheapest, nastiest printed nylon one available) and the cooker; everything else was old stuff given to us or bought in the secondhand shop. We were decided to buy a fridge with our remaining savings a week later when the milk went off.

Well, I am a Yorkshireman...

We are lucky but that doesn't mean the OP is wrong to feel bad about what they are losing.

Of course not. And most of us do it sometimes. I suppose my theme was "count your blessings". Trite, in hindsight, for which I apologise though I do think some of these old platitudes have a grain of good counsel in them.

Pollycat

mumps wrote: »

You have known about the first change for years, not the second. I am also 60 later this year and would love to be able to retire. I think it would be good if there was some recognition of how long your working life is. I started work at 15, my kids have all been to or are going to university and have started work at 21 or 22 so I think that should be reflected as well, particularly when you think of people who have done hard physical labour all their lives (not that I have but I know men who have and are burnt out before 65.)

Yes, I do agree with this - and I was pretty damed hacked off about the second very-little-notice push back of my state pension.

But, unlike the OP, I'm not accusing the Government of 'stealing money from me'.

I have the common sense to realise, unlike the OP, that my NI contributions were (as I retired early almost 10 years ago and no longer pay NI) for more than just my State pension.

Southend1

mumps wrote: »

My father and my husband always worked unsocial hours so for me that is no real change. Would I want to go back to the 1950s with nothing open on a Sunday? No I wouldn't. I like being able to shop when I want and unsocial hours suit some people.

However many thousands, if not millions of people are now forced to work Sundays to satisfy this kind of greed.

I wonder how many children never get to spend a whole day with both parents because you feel it is your right to be able to buy a new pair of socks on a Sunday?

This is the 21st century, we should be reaping the benefit of computerisation and automation and instead here we are working 7 days a week until we drop because of the greed of the rich who want to get even richer through our sweat and the middle classes who can't possibly manage for one day a week without a trip to costa coffee.

[Deleted User]

Southend1 wrote: »

This is the 21st century, we should be reaping the benefit of computerisation and automation and instead here we are working 7 days a week until we drop because of the greed of the rich who want to get even richer through our sweat and the middle classes who can't possibly manage for one day a week without a trip to costa coffee.

I'm not sure it can be blamed on the rich. The world is constantly changing, a decade ago most people had a computer in the home but it was used for a few minutes every day to check the weather or play pinball. Today a normal household will have computers, laptops, ipads, ipods, televisions and unfortunately salaries have not kept up with that growth in consumer demand. The reason people are now working every day of the week isn't because of a conspiracy by the rich to keep the poor man down, it's because now everyone wants needs more "stuff".

Look back half a century ago to the 60s, the apex of a persons life was getting married and purchasing a home, once you were married and paying for your home (through a mortgage) that was that, what else was there to buy? Bills got paid and maybe you were earning enough to save for a holiday to the seaside but that was it!

If the spending attitudes of people had stayed in line with those of our grandparents (or for the older people here, their parents) we would be living in a utopia where people work for 4 days a week and spend more of their time enjoying life than working. I could do that now if I wanted, if I lived like my grandparents did I could work 4 days a week in an average job and still be able to have a good quality of living...

Spending the best part of £1000 on a new mobile phone is expected nowadays, for most people that's at least 2 weeks pay and these are not once in a lifetime purchases, they're purchases made every year or so, that sort of frequent spending would blow my grandmothers mind!

The world has changed for the better, we have benefited greatly from the progressions that have been made in science and technology, however our demands have greatly outpaced this growth, what our grandparents consider luxuries are now considered necessary. This forum is a very good demonstration of this:

There are members that live like our grandparents, they spend money on important things and save for luxuries, this allows their mortgages to be paid off early, their savings to grow and creates a substantial and comfortable retirement, to do this they don't need to work 80 hour weeks or sell their first born, they just need to be sensible.

There are members that are earning reasonable salaries who are steeped in debt not because they made life changing decisions like entering into property ownership but because they were so desperate to have the latest iPad or newest 3D TV that they spent money they didn't have. These are the people that our grandparents will never understand because debt for a luxury is absolute insanity to them.

A family with two adults earning the average salary (combined total £52,000) could live like royalty if their attitudes to spending matched those of our grandparents, they could work normal hours, own their own home and retire with money in the bank allowing them to experience the world!

mumps

Southend1 wrote: »

However many thousands, if not millions of people are now forced to work Sundays to satisfy this kind of greed.

I wonder how many children never get to spend a whole day with both parents because you feel it is your right to be able to buy a new pair of socks on a Sunday?

This is the 21st century, we should be reaping the benefit of computerisation and automation and instead here we are working 7 days a week until we drop because of the greed of the rich who want to get even richer through our sweat and the middle classes who can't possibly manage for one day a week without a trip to costa coffee.

I recruit people, no one is forced to work Sundays and I don't know anyone who works seven days a week, just because a shop is open seven days it doesn't mean the same staff are there every day. I have students begging for work. I also have couples who don't want to put children in childcare so prefer one parent to work evenings or weekends. You might think it is tragic that they don't have Sundays together but some parents make the decision that they would prefer their child to be with a parent, it is their choice. I have done jobs where I worked weekends, one plus for this is you get your days off when things are quieter, cheaper so I was happy with it. If I want to buy socks on Sundays I don't see why it is any of your business, we don't have slavery, people make choices. The world doesn't have to fit your idea of some bygone age.