What am I, pensioner or unemployed ?

Freecall

Aren’t two things being confused here? There is being ‘retired’ in the sense that you no longer work, are not seeking work and have no intention of doing so and there is receiving ‘retirement benefits’.

For lots of people (possibly most) these things happen at different times. There is a period where, even though you might consider yourself fully retired, the state and other institutions do not recognise the fact in a financial sense.

It sometimes causes confusion because we don’t really have the language to express this interim period since historically the two events tended to coincide. As lifestyles evolve we will probably end up with a new word which covers this period of our lives and gets adopted into the language.

Thirty years ago for example, the word ‘partner’ referred exclusively to a business relationship whereas now it more commonly describes a long term romantic or cohabitation relationship.

p00hsticks

atush wrote: »

. There is I think, an initial 6 months of non means tested JSA, but if this time has gone by w/o you signing on and looking for work you may have missed the bus.

you are correct in saying that there is an underlying entitlement to six months JSA based on NI contributions , but the OP wouldn't be able to get any money from this even if he was in time and actively looking for work.

That's because the one exception to the lack of means testing for contributions based JSA is if you are in receipt of an occupational or private pension, when anything over £50 a week is deducted pound for pound from the JSA.

At under sixty, for benefits you'd be considered 'Working Age' rather than a pensioner, but unless you are actually looking for employment I wouldn't be using the term ' unemployed' - personally I'd call the OP 'economically inactive'

System

Mojisola wrote: »

until you reach SPA, you are not a pensioner entitled to pensioner discounts.

.

But the SPA varies for different people, and will increasingly spread as it is progressively increased.

Does that mean the age of entitlement to say bus passes will also increase each year?

seven-day-weekend

Clifford_Pope wrote: »

But the SPA varies for different people, and will increasingly spread as it is progressively increased.

Does that mean the age of entitlement to say bus passes will also increase each year?

Yes..the age to receive 'Pensioner Perks' goes up in line with the women's State Pension age and that is the age everyone qualifies at the moment. When this reaches parity with men's, then that will be the age everybody qualifies for such things, whatever age that may be.

moneyistooshorttomention

Freecall wrote: »

Aren’t two things being confused here? There is being ‘retired’ in the sense that you no longer work, are not seeking work and have no intention of doing so and there is receiving ‘retirement benefits’.

For lots of people (possibly most) these things happen at different times. There is a period where, even though you might consider yourself fully retired, the state and other institutions do not recognise the fact in a financial sense.

It sometimes causes confusion because we don’t really have the language to express this interim period since historically the two events tended to coincide. As lifestyles evolve we will probably end up with a new word which covers this period of our lives and gets adopted into the language.

Thirty years ago for example, the word ‘partner’ referred exclusively to a business relationship whereas now it more commonly describes a long term romantic or cohabitation relationship.

On the subject of language though, I think its not wise to use the Government's terminology about PENSIONS and PENSIONER CONCESSIONS and start calling them "pensioner benefits". Weasel words and the Government is trying to re-name "pensions" and "pensioner concessions" as part of a strategy to have a go at them.

I would agree though that we are in an interim period and I doubt women, for instance, in their 30s would describe 60 as Retirement Age and expect anything at all then. Hence my term "half-pensioner" that I have coined and use to mean "Retirement Age and retired...but the Government doesn't recognise the fact".

...and then there is the other side of the coin...the one that if my work Retirement Age had been raised to being older than my Retirement Age and I were on the receiving end of the redundancy that I suspect would be my lot in the near future, then I would have to describe myself as "working age and unemployed" (even though I would know, in my own head, that I wasn't at all and had been forcibly retired and now regarded myself that way). Reason being....in order to ensure I qualified for my unemployment benefit, even though I had no intention of getting a job and was only asking for them to be seen to do so iyswim.

taktikback

They should be seen pensioner concessions not benefits, particularly if they are not means tested. Benefits should be for people that are assessed as needing them rather than perks of old age or any other social or age related grouping.

The tone of this whole thread is jarring to me. People taking voluntary redundancy and then going after whatever hand outs they can get. The sooner the system is tightened up the better. If you choose not to work before SPA then you should make your own arrangements and not sponge off the taxpayer

dzug1

taktikback wrote: »

The sooner the system is tightened up the better. If you choose not to work before SPA then you should make your own arrangements and not sponge off the taxpayer

I thought the whole tenor of this thread is that that is in fact what happens - no 'tightening up' needed

taktikback

fair point - perhaps it's the expectation that free stuff should be available and the endless whining about it is what is jarring...

Freecall

taktikback wrote: »

The tone of this whole thread is jarring to me. People taking voluntary redundancy and then going after whatever hand outs they can get. The sooner the system is tightened up the better. If you choose not to work before SPA then you should make your own arrangements and not sponge off the taxpayer

But surely a voluntary redundancy of somebody who is happy to accept it has to be better than the forced redundancy of someone who is not.

Either way, you end up with one person out of a job.

gorjam

I find myself in a very difficult situation, I have been made redundant through no fault of my own, but luckily I receive a small pension each month. The small pension being too much to enable me to claim JSA, even though I am looking for work at 55 and have paid NI for over 36years. I have paid into the system but when I need their help to find a job nothing is forthcoming.


I see it as enforced retirement.