[Closed] Raise in state pension age

It's my perception that the current generation in their 40s might get to retirement age in collectively physically better fettle than the generation that has just retired (arguable, but I'll let it go) but we'll be mentally knackered. We work harder and longer and put up with greater levels of work related stress than any non world war generation before by every measurable criteria. I have no doubt the generation after us will be worse again in that regard.

I suspect we (the age group who just had their working life extended) collectively might reach our 60s less useful to the world of work than is expected.

We work harder and longer and put up with greater levels of work related stress than any non world war generation before by every measurable criteria.

Try having that discussion with the generations that worked down the mines, in the shipyards and the steel mills. The generation that had no NHS and was lucky if they lived more than a year or two into their "retirement". I think you'll find they would just laugh at you.

Try having that discussion with the generations that worked down the mines, in the shipyards and the steel mills.

Done that. My father's family all worked in the Manchester steel mills for generations. Some gritty tales but also some surprising stories of an easy life by modern standards.

The generation that had no NHS

That'll be the ww2 generation I already mentioned.

lived more than a year or two into their "retirement"

Which was more about levels of health care, smoking, and urban pollution. All bad news but nothing to do with what I was talking about.

I think you'll find they would just laugh at you.

They might because most people think like you mentioned above that they personally had it worst. But I prefer the objective viewpoint of experts on the issue. Who would laugh at you. I'll dig out the details in the morning and post them up.

Try having that discussion with the generations that worked down the mines, in the shipyards and the steel mills. The generation that had no NHS and was lucky if they lived more than a year or two into their "retirement". I think you'll find they would just laugh at you.

Plus fighting a war

Done that. My father's family all worked in the Manchester steel mills for generations. Some gritty tales but also some surprising stories of an easy life by modern standards.

And my family worked in the shipyards so have heard similar tales. Yes, some some skiving certainly happened but by modern standards life was far tougher in those days. Plus longer hours and fewer holidays.

That'll be the ww2 generation I already mentioned.

Which was more about levels of health care, smoking, and urban pollution. All bad news but nothing to do with what I was talking about.

A lot of that urban pollution was caused by the appalling factories that many of those generations worked in. Those working conditions contributed a good bit to early deaths.

They might because most people think like you mentioned above that they personally had it worst. But I prefer the objective viewpoint of experts on the issue. Who would laugh at you. I'll dig out the details in the morning and post them up.

As I said earlier, every generation likes a moan. Don't get me wrong, when I was younger I did exactly the same. But my generation, and the current one, have on the whole had it very easy compared to the ones that went before. Yes there are still (too many) people working in rotten conditions but thankfully numbers (in the developed world) are way down on what they were.

I know I certainly wouldn't have wanted to lead the life my father and grandfather lived, even if they probably thought exactly the same about the generations that went before.

Oh and in those days they had proper jobs, not sitting around doing kid on work like HR consultants or relationship managers or Six Sigma analysts and many, many more. 🙂

ahwiles - Member

It's hard enough changing career direction in your thirties. But we're expecting businesses to employ 60yr olds too knackered for their old jobs?

Really?

Apparently so - if you have a tenuous grip on reality. the reality is most folk in my position will be retiring at 60 ish on health grounds and will thus be unemployable

TJ you won't be retiring at 60, you'll be joining the ranks of benefit recipients who for one reason or other can't work. There's a difference.

the reality is most folk in my position will be retiring at 60 ish on health grounds and will thus be unemployable

Same here I imagine

stumpy - no I will be retiring - I am one of the last cohort of NHS employees who can take their occupational pension at 60 tho I will have to wait until 67 to get my state pension

Its the folk who joined the NHS after me who will not be able to take their occupational pensions until 65 that concern me

Its OK for those of you that have jobs that are not physically demanding and emotionally destroying to suggest that a higher pension age is acceptable. Its not for those of us who do these sorts of jobs

I walk around 10 miles every shift. I lift and move several tonnes. I have to be able to respond coolly in highly emotional situations and make critical decisions while doing this. As a fairly fit 56 yr old its already a lot harder to do this effectively than it was 20 years ago. the chances of me remaining effective at 65 are close to zero.

£1bn vs £74bn

Ah, when you put it like that it is OK and as far as bribes go it is peanuts. We should be grateful that it wasn't more.

and another also...the average life expectacy may be increasing but for many it isnt. If you live in Glasgow or Blackpool your chances of getting and NI back are much less than if you live in Bournmouth. Even if you live in the south there will be outliers- my family history suggests its unlikely I'll get much past 70(even that would be exceptional) but I've paid NI all my life never not worked since 15. I would probably be better of with reduced amount paid from 65.

As I said earlier, every generation likes a moan. Don't get me wrong, when I was younger I did exactly the same. But my generation, and the current one, have on the whole had it very easy compared to the ones that went before. Yes there are still (too many) people working in rotten conditions but thankfully numbers (in the developed world) are way down on what they were.

I know I certainly wouldn't have wanted to lead the life my father and grandfather lived, even if they probably thought exactly the same about the generations that went before.

Oh and in those days they had proper jobs, not sitting around doing kid on work like HR consultants or relationship managers or Six Sigma analysts and many, many more.

Again, i think you have the wrong end of my stick 😉

I'm not talking about physical working conditions. In many ways they have improved which undoubtedly has had an effect on the life expectancy of the population in the last 100 years. I'm talking about work related stress. A culture of performance management and targets. A culture where 66% of workers admit to feeling that they must log in and check work emails at home in the evenings or weekends or face recriminations. A culture where even none office workers receive literally hundreds of emails daily that they are expected to assimilate or action. A culture where 'efficiency' is a primary. A culture where a job for life is a distant memory. I know workers have always felt under pressure but every study you care t read shows the mental pressure the work force feel under now is at at all time high. As I said in my first post, no doubt todays workers will make it to 60 odd in better physical shape than previous generations, I'm just not convinced they won't be burnt out mentally in much great numbers than appreciated.

2037? Our robot overlords won't entertain retirement, we'll be worked to death as slaves by then

I dont have an issue with an increase in pension age in line with life expectancy

Nor me. Wasn't it only about 40 years ago life expectancy was around 68, i.e. 3 years of retirement before death and a low sum of money to keep in pension pot. If that 3 year gap had been kept retirement age would be at 80...

But you talked about working harder and longer than previous generations, and used the phrase "[I]every[/I] measurable criteria". I would suggest that things like the average length of working week, or amount of industrial related illnesses" are very measurable, so I would love to see the stats that prove our generations have had it harder than the ones that went before.

As for things like checking emails in the evening and at weekends, I worked for years in areas where that went on. Personally I rarely ever bothered. I witnessed many times the "late night email" which was normally sent by people trying to prove they were still working late at night. Almost always these were emails of no importance whatsoever that could easily have been sent the next day (many of them had no need to be sent at all) by middle managers desperate to climb the corporate ladder. There were exceptions of course (project implementations and the like) but not many. I guess I may have suffered the recriminations you talked about in that I wasn't promoted to the levels I may have been, but I chose quality of life over chasing money.

I do agree that there is more pressure now to reach certain targets, but of workers raise that for the majority of them (and I was in this category) their jobs are of no real importance and the world will keep spinning whether or not they send that 10pm email about the shake up in HR. Then that supposed stress will drop hugely. Different if you are, say, a doctor, nurse or fireman, but for most of us the stresses of jobs are illusionary and/or self-inflicted.

Avoiding mental burnout is just a case of realising that your job is far less important than spending time with family and friends, or riding bikes for that matter. 🙂

Wasn't it only about 40 years ago life expectancy was around 68, i.e. 3 years of retirement before death and a low sum of money to keep in pension pot. If that 3 year gap had been kept retirement age would be at 80...

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But as per the rest of my comment when life expectancy was 65 we more frequently had jobs with security until 65 that were also more likey to be fulfillable by a 60 something.

As has been commented the chance of most people being able to work in todays competive often pressured work enviroments until late into their 60's are very unlikey.

We have increased life expectancy but we havent stopped the aging process.

There is also the issue that the life expectancy being only a couple of years longer than retirement statistic (i.e. inferring most people retired and then died within a couple of years) was never really a thing as it is presented. Looks nice on paper but a bit more complex in reality. The average life expectancy was hugely effected by infant mortality. If you safely managed to negotiate your way to 11 years old and entered the world of work life expectancy was considerably more rosy than the headline figures suggests. If you reached 65 years old in 1950 you could expect to live another 15 years. Today that figure is about 19 years. Not radically different but I guess in correlation with the actual rise in pensionable age.

We have increased life expectancy but we havent stopped the aging process.

We haven't stopped the ageing process but we have slowed it down hugely. I regularly see people in their 60s, 70s and even 80s out biking, running, skiing and hillwalking. A lot of them doing these activities to a pretty decent standard too. That its something almost unheard of just a couple of decades ago. Which is a great thing.

The big question is whether there will still be the same amount of jobs needing doing. But to be honest I heard that old "machines will take all the jobs" thing for my entire career and it never happened to any great extent. New types of jobs are always being created.

As for the job for life, well no it rarely exists now. Not always a bad thing. People are far more mobile now and the kids I know who are graduating now are relishing the chance to do different jobs and work in different places (yeah, yeah, Brexit and all that, but that's another debate).

They are all relishing the opportunities that lie ahead of them. Challenges yes, but to them the thought of being stuck in the same dreary job in the same dreary town is horrifying.

I think this thread may not yet have picked up on an implication of this trend to higher state pension age, related to public sector pensions.

Because of the Osborne changes, pension contributions are now taxed at 25% after a £1m value (formerly £1.7m). Public sector pension contributions tend to pay for current liabilities rather than accruing as a pension "pot", but are extrapolated on the basis of a notional value / liability.

As stage pension age continues to rise, so do most public sector pension ages - which [i]should[/i] grow the size of contributions over time.

For a doctor starting in the NHS in 1988 and having worked all their time the NHS, they would retire at 60 on half their salary having made personal contributions of 6%. Assuming today's system continues unchanged, the same doctor starting in 2008 would retire 8 years later having made contributions that are 130% higher - plus be taxed on their contributions at a rate of 25%, probably from the final 15-20 years of their career.

Regardless of fairness, this is a big change that results in a bigger tax take and lower benefits over a member's lifetime. But...

While contributions to public sector schemes should continue to grow, this assumption will be tested as more high-earning scheme members quit contributions at the time they trigger the £1m cap.

[b]Ben H[/b] That doesn't all apply to us GPs. We have [i]always [/i]been in a money purchase scheme where we pay an increasingly large percentage of our earnings each year (currently mine - at age 56 - is 13.5% with 14.3% from our "employer", the scheme is fully funded and our pensions pot reflects our total lifetime earnings plus inflationary adjustment etc... Not a final salary, and you would do damn well to get anywhere near 50%.

As you say - for all Docs, the change in Lifetime allowance now encourages people to take their pension earlier, or stop contributing, and is a major part of the reason why GPs are retiring earlier - add into that the punitive change in "annual allowance" taxation, there is now also an incentive to work part-time or move nto the private sector and leave ones NHS pension frozen. And if I hadn't transferred money to my ex on divorce I'd be looking at that about now.

These unintended consequences - plus the loss of confidence in EU Drs in coming here are part of the reasons the NHS medical staffing is going to be stuffed, at a time when in my line of work, workload has gone up 16% in the last 6 years, pay has fallen, and the number of Drs working has gone up by less than 1%....

However - the thread is about the state pension - and really at a time when we live so much longer - what the hell did we expect? A magic-money tree? 😉

I have very specialised skills and knowledge. What on earth do you think I could get a job as?

Checkout operator
Chugger
Traffic warden
Parking attendant
Phone operator
Security guard

Plenty of unskilled work out there that requires very little other than standard induction training.

This doesn't affect me, but probably means that 69 will move which will catch me.

Good thing my pension planning isn't fixed around my state pension age.

That doesn't all apply to us GPs. We have always been in a money purchase scheme where we pay an increasingly large percentage of our earnings each year (currently mine - at age 56 - is 13.5% with 14.3% from our "employer", the scheme is fully funded and our pensions pot reflects our total lifetime earnings plus inflationary adjustment etc... Not a final salary, and you would do damn well to get anywhere near 50%.

That's not a money purchase, its a contributory defined benefit scheme, albeit not final salary. If it was a money purchase your pension will be dependent upon investment performance of the "fund", which I doubt exists in reality, it is a government accounting concept, and annuity rates.

[b]mefty[/b] thanks - you are absolutely right of course - wrong words.

[quote=squirrelking ]
Checkout operator
Chugger
Traffic warden
Parking attendant
Phone operator
Security guard

Will those jobs still exist?

Checkout operator - automated. In fact, checkouts will soon be superfluous: https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2016/12/05/amazon-go-supermarket-no-checkout-no-cashiers-artificial-intelligence-sensors/94991612/
Chugger - a possibility. Though may be filled by people doing community service sentences. Or as someone for people to punch.
Traffic warden - self driving cars/car subscription etc will mean no more parking
Parking attendant - see traffic warden
Phone operator - I don't think that job even exists now?
Security guard - Em... working on it: https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2017/7/17/15986042/dc-security-robot-k5-falls-into-water

As all these people become unemployed, they'll become a resource that can be utilised. So someone will think of something for them to do. Not en-masse, but person by person, job by job. That's what's always happened.

There will always be jobs for the cleverest people. As more and more technology becomes part of even lower skilled jobs then clever people will need to start filling these. Trouble is these jobs are boring, unfulfilling and low paid for clever people so that will lead to a deterioration in mental health.

The less than clever people? They'll have had it. Surplus to requirements, useless to society. What will happen to them is anyones guess but there will be no paying jobs for them.

Humans will be able to do stuff that machines can't, for a long while yet.

[quote=km79 ]What will happen to them is anyones guess but there will be no paying jobs for them.In which case (as has been previously suggested) they'd be on benefits until pension age?

Humans will be able to do stuff that machines can't, for a long while yet.

In which case (as has been previously suggested) they'd be on benefits until pension age?

As all these people become unemployed, they'll become a resource that can be utilised. So someone will think of something for them to do. Not en-masse, but person by person, job by job. That's what's always happened.

Or just house then all in highly flammable tower blocks.......

err aren't we already sending them on fruitless college or university courses, a life of education you say... and making them think it is to their advantage so they pay for it

#2moreyearsifidbeenafireman

There will always be jobs for the cleverest people. As more and more technology becomes part of even lower skilled jobs then clever people will need to start filling these. Trouble is these jobs are boring, unfulfilling and low paid for clever people so that will lead to a deterioration in mental health.

The less than clever people? They'll have had it. Surplus to requirements, useless to society. What will happen to them is anyones guess but there will be no paying jobs for them.

They also had a scenario where the menial workers are wearing a computer headset giving them instructions on the optimsed solution to complete tasks and basically using us as a meat wagon to complete its directions.

Ever worked in an Amazon warehouse?

When we get to the situation where we have a robot that can effectivly clean a toilet block often enough to be worth while, then a clever person can supervise a whole areas worth of toilet cleaner robots, and adjust them when needed to get them back on track.

How far we are from that scenario who can tell.

What greentricky said! Has already happened in some areas and will undoubtedly become widespread. How many admin jobs will be left by the end of this decade?

Just don't expect pay to rise for said menial jobs/remaining jobs. For the majority it won't, with millions of desperado's chasing pennies to survive and those in position to manipulate know it! They can't wait to be masters, choosing on whim and for their entertainment who gets ****ed over, while encouraging the plebs to blame each other/other people, watching on with glee as they tear the skin off each others backs.

Will be like Studio 54 for a cleaning job, but without any of the glamour or it being of your own volition, just sheer desperation with the losers derided for being idiots who made/make bad lifestyle choices 🙂

You for example TJ could be doing part time work training people in your special skills, researching or something - or maybe some kind of community work?

I don't have the skills or training to do research. Nurse education is masters only entrants. community work? What area - I am not qualified as a community nurse. Once I am unable to continue with my present job then no work in healthcare or education is possible for me.

Checkout operator

Chugger
Traffic warden
Parking attendant

Phone operator

Security guard

Its all so easy for those of you with sedentary and low impact jobs to think of other things - none of you face the reality of what is happening to public servants like me. None of you outside the healthcare professions have any idea of the sort of mental and physical stresses we undergo daily.

I would like any of you ( outside of the healthcare professions) to cope with my working week for one week. You would be broken by the end of it. As a comparator trekking 60 miles with heavy packs over rough ground is easier for me physically than a working week

Finally - " Jobcentres are preparing for a surge in unemployed older people who will need extra training in how to write CVs, apply for work online, and deal confidently with employers who they fear “routinely” discriminate against older workers.

A study by the Department for Work and Pensions predicted that the number of 60-64 year olds on jobseekers allowance and incapacity benefits will rise to more than 400,000 by 2020. "

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9771964/Soaring-numbers-of-over-60s-face-unemployment.html

As a comparator trekking 60 miles with heavy packs over rough ground is easier for me physically than a working week

Anyway... It's not about you. It's about the vast numbers of physically able who can still quite happily work and lead full lives doing it.

Leave retirement for people who need to retire.

Chugger
Traffic warden
Parking attendant
Physically impossible for me. My body is damaged by the physical load I have taken over 40 years

So no hiking or bike riding or any other physical activity for you then?

I don't doubt that your job has taken a physical toll but if those things are physically impossible then you must be pretty much disabled.

Hiking and cycling are done in short bursts not 10 hours a day for 5 or six days a week and do not involve not standing all day. I can adjust the amount of time I do these activities depending on how my feet legs and back feel - and yes I certainly could claim disability if I wanted to - I could even have taken early retirement on medical grounds - indeed I was offered it. couldn't afford it however.

Look for an in demand skill.

I plan to go into semi retirement as a handyman doing light work.

But yes it sucks. I'm expecting the retirement age to pushed out again for me. yay. and my main pension is linked to my normal retirement age. so in effect as it moves out it devalues my pension a big chunk too.

anyway we are all in it together so it is time to suck up the unfairness and get on with a plan

I don't have the skills or training to do research. Nurse education is masters only entrants. community work? What area - I am not qualified as a community nurse.

That's my point. Older people need support, training etc to move jobs. In other words, the workforce needs investing in, and not just when it's young. It's a national resource that needs managing positively.

Apart from other health issues, arthritis in my hands means I couldn't do my old job. So under the new scheme I'd need re-training for a final four or five years. But once one's passed sixty, learning for a new occupation will be slow and inefficient. Companies will chose to invest in younger staff. I'd be unemployable.

Mol - alternatively people could be flexible rather than expectant. We will all need to be prepared for it....

Companies will chose to invest in younger staff.

Yes, they would - that's why I'm saying we need a new approach. A government programme to get old people contributing what they are able to without being at the mercy of a cruel market.

No point waiting for givernments to respond - DIY is much better and far more likely to work. With initiative and flexibility lots of things to do in the third age.

With initiative and flexibility

Is that available to order online?

I think some people may need help in this area THM.

teamhurtmore - Member
No point waiting for givernments to respond - DIY is much better and far more likely to work. With initiative and flexibility lots of things to do in the third age.

But as pointed out a lot will have changed by the time this comes to pass, in my lifetime agricutuiral labour has been slashed by machinary, manufacturing has moved and been automated, driving could easily be next. For those of us that use our brains more than our hands we have some time but the rapid rise of other nations will eat into that.

With automation there is some thinking that the things which will survive are around problem solving, particularly linked to physical skills, so stuff like plumbing. The other is where people want human contact so service jobs, medicine/care - although elements of these could be automated already.

But the point is with all this is reducing need for human input and workforce generally even if output/overall wealth increases.

If you look back to 60s and 70s a lot of sci-fi was utopian - automation increased wealth of society as a whole and the dividend was taken as greater leisure time for the general population. This is essentially a socialist idea, and not consistent with market driven economics - maybe that's why all our sci-fi is now dystopian!

The pension issue and the linked cost of elderly care are two of the biggest issues we have to face and raising retirement age towards 70 isn't going to make people fit to work or create jobs. I couldn't do what I do now when I'm in may late 60s it's not at all physical but is intellectually challenging,fast moving, competitive and stressful. If we need old people to contribute then need to think how to structure working life to accommodate third age careers which draw on experience of older workforce but simply don't just take entry level work away from the young.

Not going to be easy and I think it will need Government to take a more active role in labour market management - but difficult for a single county in a global economy. Maybe need to look to Scandinavian models?

I've depressed myself now, hopefully the weather will calm down soon so I can go surfing.

This is essentially a socialist idea

Indeed. It seems automation could increase profits and reduce wage bills*. So more money flows to the people who run those companies, and less to the people who no longer work for them. So free-market capitalism then would ensure more money would flow to the few. We'd need a more socialist government to allow us all to benefit and not suffer.

* however this is not a given. If automation puts people out of work then it reduces the market and the available money for that service. Automation is already very possible in many areas, it's just not financially viable, because the market for whatever it is can't support the extra initial cost. Automation requires a large investment to save future costs, and it's that large investment that stops it in many cases. However if the potential reward is big enough it happens and then reduces costs and presumably then increases profits much more. So the more money you have, the more you can make, in other words. Same as usual.

Having said that, if costs are low, profits don't necessarily go up. You can keep the same profit and reduce prices to sell more, then reduce prices more and so on. See car industry. The upshot of automation there isn't to make the car companies richer, it's to make cars cheaper and better, from which we all benefit (arguably)

Economics in 'bit more complicated than it looks' shocker.

Dunno why you are all on about automation. This is just a straight up rob of money from my pocket.

You're also going to have the impact of the Gen-X looking after their decrepit Baby-Boomer parents due to lack of social care provision - my wife hasn't worked for years due to her having to care for her house-bound, disabled mother. No one accounting for the fact that large numbers of people being economically inactive due to inadequate social care?

Very true Molgrips, and I wasn't suggesting a socialist utopian answer. I was partly making an observation about how differently it's played out.

I was going to write a long response, but the weather is improving so I'm off out. But generally I think we need to work back from an answer rather forward from the problem and part of that answer has to be a different balance between the pure market and social dividend - and politics being less tied to entrenched dogma.

This video of the Ocado warehouse is cool and also a bit scary, especially the R2D2 robots.

[url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/business-38897417/the-ocado-warehouse-run-by-robots ]the-ocado-warehouse-run-by-robots[/url]

Companies will chose to invest in younger staff.

Unless we continue with mass immigration, these will be in very short supply...

younger staff....
Unless we continue with mass immigration, these will be in very short supply...

"I believe the children are our future, teach them well and let them lead the way" clever chap that George Benson 🙂 yes I know it was Linda Creed the lyricist

it's a bl00dy travesty for society to expect the young to clean up (metaphorically or literally) after the oldies

It's also how most families and societies have operated for 1000s of years....

I wasn't suggesting a socialist utopian answer

I was 🙂

But yes - you put it very eloquently and I agree entirely.

Anyone think the citizen's wage idea would be the start of this project? Allowing us to contribute to society without needing to be directly salaried on the basis of activity?

Poss but only as a replacement for the benefits system (sensible approach) NOT as an addition (John McD IIRC)

seosamh77 - Member
Dunno why you are all on about automation. This is just a straight up rob of money from my pocket.

I was thinking about this last night listening to any questions but has thier ever been any consideration for retirement age differing by job, outside the public sector? So physical workers retire younger than office jockeys? I waa thinking each job category has a code and you accrue points say 1 a year for farmer, labourer, bin man etc. 0.9 a year for sedentary work and you have to work towards a points total, say 45 to retire.seems a bit fairer although I know all other kind of health issues come with age, not just those from a physical life

mikewsmith - Member

What if I said the money was never Er in your pocket to start with. In fact the money doesn't even exist.