Mitzyboy

I'm not disagreeing with you, but clearly at some time someone has decided that they will save more by making people work until they drop. In general, making people work until 70 years of age is just plain crazy, as the majority will want to retire and have some time to do what they want to.

bil

I just wonder if this isn't yet more spin, like saying the unemployed should be made to work, and while it may sound good, all it does is shift government spending off the pensions and onto paying yet more unemployed.

Yet another example of someone not having thought thru what the consequences of their actions might be?

Mitzyboy

Its been proved that when car manufacturers find a fault in a car, they weigh up the costs before they issue a recall. They work out how much it will cost if it kills "X" number of people against the cost of a recall of all the cars.

I'm guessing it's much the same behind the decision to push up retirement age.

bil

You would hope, wouldn't you? Can you see my point tho that it doesn't appear to make sense?

angiescarr

It's the same reasoning during the last Tory Government that made single mothers go out to work... and feel guilty, and left the absent fathers of their children scratching their lazy arses.
I have a radical idea! Why doesn't everyone work 30 hours a week instead of 40. (Give leisure time it's 'value' back) Then everyone will have a job, anhd everyone will be able to enjoy their free time! No one will be paying anyone to be part of an 'underclass'.
Once again it was the '80s which taught people that if you weren't earning more than the next man you had no value.

We are living (in Spain) in a country that historically does what I'm proposing. They valued work less and play more.
Yes, I know they still have serious unemployment. But that's mostly because they are changing and getting more acquisitive.

Lionda

Sounds good in theory but put into practice .. who could reasonably afford to only work 30 hours?

steviedeluxe

Wayne Rooney?

scampicat

In the two years before we took early retirement, my husband worked twenty hours and I worked 22. We managed fine (however we had finished paying our mortgage).

As to the increase in Pension age, I suppose when the 65 age limit was set, many people did not make 70. Now they can easily draw their State Pension for twenty-five years or even longer (my mum drew hers for 36 years!).

It's to save money.

Also, no-one has said you HAVE to work until 70. You can retire at whatever age you like. You just can't draw your State Pension till the retirement age. But you may be able to live on private or occupational pensions until that time. Or work part-time like we did and then live on an Occupational Pension for five years. We now have my State Pension as well, and my husband's to come in 2014.

You have to plan creatively!

bil

Everyone says it's to save money, but I don't know the figures.

How much money would be saved by not paying Charlie a pension until he is 70 say, but then having to pay Fred, who would have taken over that job, another 5 years unemployment?

megmet

Personally I would rather pay Charlie his pension and make Fred get out of bed in a morning and earn his own living.
I think the problem with that though is there are an awful lot of Fred's who just don't and indeed won't get out of bed.
When they do finally surface all they want to do is to play computer games and cash their social security cheques...which are usually bigger than Charlies pension!

bil

Why? Why bother to get Fred out of bed if he doesn't want to when you have ten keen applicants for every job vacancy?

I'd love top have the correct figures for what Fred and Charlie might get. I know damn well what my mother used to get, and it was a pittance, so I suspect that you may be right, and the unemployment may well be more than the pension, so in that case WHAT THE **** IS GOING ON?? Why are they making life worse for would be pensionistas? Is it because they figure they are weak enough to be bullied?

scampicat

Basic Stae Pension will be £102 a week from April 2011. However, there is a minimum income guarantee (via Pension Credit) which is around £130 for a single person and around £200 for a couple. If your income from all sources is less than this it will be made up to these amounts. If you are eleigible for Pension Credit you will also get your rent and Council Tax paid. So I don't see it as a pittance.

Jobseekers' Allowance from April 2011 is 67.50 for a single person and £105 for a couple, plus rent and council tax paid.

So those out of work are NOT better off (unless they have disabilities or loads of children, when they may be).

johnnyone

Also my mother gets winter fuel allowance (£400), pays about 10% of her local rates and gets a freedom pass for buses, tubes and train in the GLC area. She manages perfectly well and says there is no such thing as a poor pensioner in the UK.

Mitzyboy

Well shes clearly very luck .... prey tell me how normally someone exists on £102 (the increased figure) a week when they have to pay rent etc?

JLFS

There is housing benefit wich covers rent on top, that figure you give is what is left for food and heat and other expenses, excluding rent and council tax.

The pension is low but with the extras, things are not so bad, whereas a pension of 450 a month in Spain, means just that, 450 and no allowance made for rent etc.