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State Pension Age to rise further

SnowMan
SnowMan Posts: 3,531 Forumite
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25225532
The date when people must be 68 to draw a state pension - formerly scheduled for 2046 - will be brought forward to the mid-2030s, Chancellor George Osborne will announce later.


Plans to be announced in Mr Osborne's Autumn Statement mean the age could rise again to 69 by the late 2040s...........................


The move would affect people now aged in their 40s and below.
For me it seems State Pension Age is rising faster than I am ageing. There is a logical conclusion to be drawn from that somewhere :rotfl:
I came, I saw, I melted
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Comments

  • Was going to have a bit of a rant about this along the lines of 'if 70 is the cut off for people to spend 1/3 of their life in retirement then the govt is assuming and average lifespan of 105!!'

    But of course silly me i misread it...it says 'no more than 1/3rd of their lives'. So infact they seem to be using the maximum life expectancy.. which is largely driven by class and geography, and using it as a stick to beat normal people. As an example the average life expectancy where i live in scotland for a male is 74..the average for a male in south east england is 79. Now can i have my retirement age of 65 back now please?

    what i can see happening is this

    - ageism doesnt magically dissapear and people still find it difficult to get work after 50 (especially in manual/physical trades)

    Govt steps in to address this problem by tweaking benefits for this age group to address this problem. Creating a benefit like semi state pension ...but probably means tested.

    eventually this benefit creeps in to replace state pension... or... the state pension rises so high that this benefit effectively becomes the state pension for most people.
  • JezR
    JezR Posts: 1,698 Forumite
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    There also needs to be an attitude change amongst some employers to someone in their late 40s being only a bit over half way through their working life and not getting towards the end of it.

    A pension age of 70 was recommended too by a report in Australia recently but was dismissed by their government.
  • squeeks
    squeeks Posts: 309 Forumite
    Won't be long until they bin state pensions all together.

    If you can work you get JSA, if you can't you get a disability payment. All benefits will be means tested of course... Why put a maximum age on it?

    Maybe a little further down the road they will limit disability and JSA payments to say a month for every year worked, after that you are on your own or down to the dignitas centre.
  • Freecall
    Freecall Posts: 1,309 Forumite
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    I know that this is a pension board so people on here have a distinct interest in pensions but is this being over-hyped?

    The 'work til you drop' headlines really do give a false impression.

    As I understand things the government is giving some 20 years notice that one year of pension benefit is being removed. This means that those affected have a minimum (those coming later will have longer) of 20 years to save around £6,000 at today's values to cover the loss of benefits.

    This really does not seem unreasonable.

    I know that over the course of a generation or so there have been cumulative changes which have removed as much as 8 years worth of pension benefits (in the case of women) but the first of these was announced 20 years ago. This really is long term stuff and very easy to cater for with personal financial planning.

    Surely over a lifetime our wealth in retirement will be far more impacted by our overall national prosperity then one single state benefit?
  • let's not exaggerate. abolishing the state pension completely would be electoral suicide.

    the coalition government is already getting a lot of stick for chipping away at benefits. there's no way they could make even more drastic cuts.

    and all governments are much less harsh on pensioners than on anybody else receiving benefits. pensioners tend to vote. and "mugging grannies" doesn't make you popular.
  • Linton
    Linton Posts: 17,925 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Hung up my suit!
    Was going to have a bit of a rant about this along the lines of 'if 70 is the cut off for people to spend 1/3 of their life in retirement then the govt is assuming and average lifespan of 105!!'

    But of course silly me i misread it...it says 'no more than 1/3rd of their lives'. So infact they seem to be using the maximum life expectancy.. which is largely driven by class and geography, and using it as a stick to beat normal people. As an example the average life expectancy where i live in scotland for a male is 74..the average for a male in south east england is 79. Now can i have my retirement age of 65 back now please?

    ......

    I suggest you look further into the life expectancy figures. From your comments I think you will be surprised.

    Someone affected by this latest announcement would have been born around 1970 or later. Clearly someone who dies before they were 67 isnt affected because they wouldnt have reached state pension age anyway. So we are talking about those who are still alive at 67.

    According to the Office of National Statistics the average UK life expectancy of a man born in 1970 when they reach 67 is around 90 and around 93 for a woman. Over 16% of people are expected to reach 100.

    Why so much higher than your figures? Some reasons...

    1) Decrease in smoking, a trend that is expected to continue.
    2) The outlook for many people with serious diseases is very much better than previously, a trend that is expected to continue.
    3) Many of the working class people who are dying now will have had a much harder working life than people dying in the 2030s.
  • bigadaj
    bigadaj Posts: 11,531 Forumite
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    Whilst this is the pensions board, and the continually extending state pension age will happen far more rapidly in my opinion, say 1 year for very five years, in terms of costs to the public purse it's the minor consideration.

    Continually extending life expectancy means that costs to the nhs, care home and council provision will rise exponentially, and cost far more than the basic pension.

    Whilst we may joke about dignitas questions of quality of life will come even more to the foreground unless people are happy to pay ever higher taxes in one form or another, which they patently are not.
  • Lokolo
    Lokolo Posts: 20,861 Forumite
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    I just wish they would stop describing it as "retirement age"!
  • atush
    atush Posts: 18,731 Forumite
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    As an example the average life expectancy where i live in scotland for a male is 74..the average for a male in south east england is 79.

    This is based on an unhealthy lifestyle and poor diet. Neither of which is set in stone and you can change your destiny by changing your habits. So no, you can't retire at 65 because you like smoking, drinking to excess and not eating fruit and veg.
  • atush
    atush Posts: 18,731 Forumite
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    In any case, we here have continually predicted the rise in SPA to 70.

    So therefore this isn't news to me. And BTW, I don't get my US SP until age 68, I will get mine here earlier.
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