Domino

well so long as you aren't asking me to change my lifestyle thats all ok

Domino

Oh yes there are too many who have been down the pub\club, life and soul of the party, all the coach trips etc etc. Relying on their superannuation to pay them out as they retire. But thats at 65, and dead by 70. I can remember the times my dad was almost in tears because mates younger than him had died within a year or two of the magic 65. He lived to his 80's but mum - 6 years younger - died at 62.

Yes must agree - the system is broke. (Did we have a system?) Where did the jobs come from that we no longer have ? What jobs have been lost? Or is it that every year there are 500,000 coming out of school and pushing from the bottom, someone has to fall off the ladder at the top !
Problem is the ladder is getting shorter - the working period is getting shorter, the salaries are getting harder to keep, savings are getting less,..

The country will be more broke than Greece shortly, as the benefits system is the biggest drain. I have never, ever, decried the payments made to pensioners, I believe they should have been given more. We have spent too many years disrespecting our pensioners.

Please don't start me off about economic migrants who get benefits for their families still living in the home country, young girls who go from school to council flat with kids without ever working.

Black Economy? It could well be the only economy in some really viable scenarios.

Rosemary

My OH´s comments when he had his first operation was the fact that he had to keep on living if only to collect his state pension just to get something out of the UK government as he had paid in all his life and never had anything out. He was 65 and collected his first months pension when he had to have the second life threatening operation, he has now had 10 months worth so does not keep on saying it now but it was a real bugbear with him that he was never ill until he was due to get something back.

Rosemary

me me

Will there really be such a great saving for the taxpayer though?

A few simple sums are, that women are usually needed to look after their parents and in-laws when they are in their early 60s and the people being cared for are maybe mid 80s.

By the time the women retire at 66/67 a lot of the older parents will be dead, but there might have been a time when the state would have had take care of them (paying extra benefit or carers) due to their daughter still being in work instead of being retired at 60.

Of course, while the older workers are still in jobs the younger job seekers will be frozen out.

So in a lot of cases unemployment will have to be paid to young, because the older worker will have to work longer, and while the older worker (mainly women) are working they cannot care for older relatives to the same extent as they would have if the pension age had not increased from 60.

That scenario would be an even bigger burden on the taxpayer than before, in added care costs.

agoreira

I don't think we'll ever be that bad, the fact that Greece is paying in excess of 18-20% to borrow money, as opposed to UK's ~2-3% indicates that the powers that be think we are a better risk! Greece basically never produced anything other than civil servants. As for jobs for the younger people, this was a telling comment I read today.

Lynn R

Arrangements to equalise the pension age to 65 for women have been in place for quite some time, I know as I am one of the age group affected (just turned 55). You will not hear me objecting to that.

The objections to the latest proposals to bring forward the increase in the state retirement age for both men and women to 66 from the previous Government's proposal of 2020 to 2018 have been raised because

a) women in their mid to late '50s are being hit by a "double whammy" as they have already had to adjust their retirement plans to retire 5 years later and now are being told they will have to work an extra year.
b) the fact that people will receive only 7 years' notice of the delay in receiving their state pension instead of the 10 years which representatives of the pensions industry generally seem to think would be fair.

Given the increased life expectancy of people in all the developed world, having to work longer is inevitable in most cases, but I do think there should be some flexibility, for instance is it fair to expect people (both men and women) in jobs involving a lot of physical labour to continue working past 65, although it would not be a problem for those in more sedentary occupations.

I packed in my job at 50, having seen my mother die at 62 I said there was no way I was going to keep slogging away to pay for a pension I might not live to see the benefit of. I will get my occupational pensions and AVC top up pension at 60 so can manage until 66 if needs be before receiving the state pension - who knows, I might even benefit from the proposed new £140 per week flat rate pension if it ever comes into being (was that a pig that just flew past the window?). However, many people are not so lucky and it's not always because they have spent all their money on beer and fags.

Rosemary

Agree with all that you are saying, however there are a lot of sedentary types of jobs that involve a great deal of stress so this should also be taken into account. There are a lot of people who are horrified at being forced to retire when they feel fit and healthy enough to continue. There are also a lot who seem to just fade away because work is their life. As you said there should be some flexibility involved within the system.

I took early retirement because my husband did but mentally I was definitely not ready to stop, I loved what I did, but saying that the stress involved was having a detrimental effect on my health.

Difficult to find a middle road, some you win and some you lose.

Rosemary

Domino

guy in our mail room who was 68, had transferred at 65 to 1month notice on either side (by time served he was entitled to 4m) and had to declare every year his intention to stay working. Of the 3 of us in the team he was the fittest (me 60, other guy 35). In the 10 years I have known him the only consideration he has had has been that the OH is still working for another 5yrs and he has the grandchildren.

He contracted prostate cancer, had operation, back to work inside 4months, still working 6months later, same full 8 hour day staggered shifts.
Has no intention of stopping work.

Should I feel sorry for him or proud for him. Quite honestly the former not the latter.

Lynn R

I feel the same. I could not wait to quit working and haven't missed it for a single day. My brother-in-law, on the other hand, retired at 55 on a good pension after almost 40 years of working for the same company, many years as Chief Engineer. He took another job off-loading new cars from incoming ferries, involving working very anti-social hours as the ships often arrive in the early hours of the morning, because he was bored. His wife also carried on working until she was 63 although she could have taken her state pension at 60. In addition to a lovely house with a huge garden, they also have 6 investment properties. What is wrong with these people, that they can't find any fulfilment in life outside of work and piling up yet more money?

Returning to the original question, the momentum for yet another U-turn from this Government seems to be building. When are they going to realise that this is getting embarrassing for them? Sure, there is nothing wrong with realising that you have made a mistake and changing your mind, but sooner or later it must dawn on them that they are simply not thinking things through properly before announcing them.

All this will be as nothing, however, compared to the fall-out that will hit them if they do go ahead with introducing a flat rate state pension of £140 a week but refusing to pay that to pensioners who have already retired before it is introduced. Are they mad? It would be political suicide, especially as pensioners are the group of people most likely to vote. And not even logical - if their argument is that means-tested pension credits are too expensive to administer, why keep them going for existing pensioners instead of moving everyone on to the flat rate?

angiescarr

Although I congratulate those on this forum who have retired early on a good pension on their good luck and good management:-

I don't have a pension plan and I will work as long as I'm able. Pensions should be for people who can't work or who have worked extra hard to have a long holiday later. Personally I'd rather have my good times along the way rather than hope for a time that may never come. Early heart attacks/strokes etc among relatives and people that I know/knew have focussed my mind on this.
It's no good gambling on a retirement you may never reach, or never be well enough to enjoy. Or gambling that your employers/the state won't take most of it.
The truth is that pensions at 60 and 65 were set up when many people never reached that age, or much beyond it. It wasn't a reward for working 40 years it was because those who did live beyond this age were often too unfit to work. And a time when the working population could help support this.
Now, as they say 60 is the new 50. We should all expect to live and be healthier for at least 10 years longer. So why not work if you can. As for the male/female thing. A retired man can and should learn to cook wash clothes etc why not? Better late than never! That's my rant for the day:-)

brummie61

I can make egg & chips! does that count...hey Angie - you have an interesting outlook on how to live life. Lots of people are not making it to enjoy a life after working. A chap I worked with here was gone within a year of retiring!

bil

I think that if you want to work till you die, fine. I put those people into the same category as those who win the lottery bigtime, and then go back to work.

There are some of us for whom work is something we do to survive, and the sooner we can get away from it, the better.

I'm only surprised that the government hasn't treid to bring in a Stannkovite (sp?) ethos, or the Japanese ethos of working till you die from overwork for the glory of the State.

agoreira

I think nowadays a lot of men are capable of cooking, housework etc, I don't do the ironing, but anything else I can do. And being ex military, I can iron perfectly well, just I like to let her think she is indispensable! One of my sons is in the military and he does everything in the house, cooking, cleaning,washing etc, the other is single, lives alone, and there's nothing he can't do, they are both excellent cooks. I think in most houses, the days where the man did a day's work, came home, put his feet up and did nothing else are long gone. Might still be a few dinosaurs though. I worked with the meanest man that ever lived (his wife agreed with me!) and he died within 3 months of retiring, what is the point? His wife never had to worry about money though, he left a fortune!

Domino

learnt to wash by hand, iron, mend etc etc at 16, self taught cook out of necessity.
now I make a useful little house husband to the OH so that we can share our time together - because of circumstances that is precious to us, even if it is doing the washing up.
she prefers to do the washing and ironing instead of cooking so you can see I am usually quite busy.
but I am H A P P Y

Domino

a life-long Tory but please don't don't DON'T give them any ideas like that one - they just might try it