I think pension should be available to all at 60.

[devonwoody]

We should be allowed to draw the OAP from age 60 if we wish but obviously the amount would have to start lower, those that want to work til they drop can have I higher pension.

Thats fair isnt it.?

Its the fat cats that want you to work longer (because they get richer)

 

[Max Power]

Nice in theory Dw Problem is when the old age pension was first introduced people only got it for a short while, now that people are living much longer they could be on the pension for 50yrs :shock:
Wheres the money going to come from ?

 

[Pvt_Ryan]

Alan has a point, hence the saying you have "three score and ten". If that was the average life expectancy then you would only get 20years of a pension retiring at say 50.

 

[wobblycogs]

It's not a bad idea but I don't see it happening. The benefits aren't that hard to calculate. With my private pension I can choose when to retire from 55 onwards, there's a calculator on the pension providers website which shows roughly how much I'd get depending on when I retire and how much of a lump sum I take. If you use one of those calculators you'll quickly notice that if you retire a few years earlier you have to live on quite a lot less than someone retiring at a more normal age.

Things get a bit more complex with the state pension because it's not a fund based scheme. The money pensioners are getting today is just tax that was collected yesterday. Allowing someone to retire early on the state is effectively a double bonus since they won't have to pay NI contributions and they will be drawing money out. Any pension would probably therefore be quite small and not enough to live on.

 

[DIY Stew]

Devonwoody

I think its a great idea, it would free up jobs for the younger generation, the taxes they would pay would go some way to paying for all those who retired early, plus the government would be paying less unemployment benifit (job seekers allowence, or what ever they call it now).

It could also lead to a reduction in crime.

Stew

 

[Jacob]

Earlier IMHO. The whole point of factories, industrialisation, mass production, efficiency etc etc is to reduce the amount of work we have to do to achieve a standard of living i.e. to create unemployment.
We've been at it for 200 years or more, we are incredibly wealthy in terms of quality of life (the recession is just a right-wing fiction to keep taxes down) and we should be seeing the results by now.
The big issue is not unemployment - it's over-employment - too many people doing pointless things and producing garbage of one sort or another.

 

[t8hants]

My daughters young man is twenty and can't find work, and is doing almost continuos collage. I have had him in for work experience and he is as good as any apprentice I have started, listens to what he is told, and has a developing instinct on what is needed. If I could spend the next two years training him to replace me I could bale out at 60, and he would be a useful member of society (if steel fabricators are counted as useful)! As it is I see him getting more and more disappointed, and disillusioned.

I suppose that as job seekers allowance is much less then state pension its a better deal from the government's point of view to have the youth on benifit rather than the old uns on pension. The really annoying thing is I remember they were saying back in the seventies that todays pension provision would prove to be unaffordable, but nobody would have the courage to tackle it.

Gareth

 

[wobblycogs]

I think the Government would probably rather have older people employed than younger ones if they had a choice. Older people after all tend to earn more and therefore pay more tax.

 

[RogerS]

Personally I'd prefer to employ younger people as the older ones are getting just too arthritic to get up inside the chimneys easily.

 

[cutting42]

Earlier IMHO. The whole point of factories, industrialisation, mass production, efficiency etc etc is to reduce the amount of work we have to do to achieve a standard of living i.e. to create unemployment.
We've been at it for 200 years or more, we are incredibly wealthy in terms of quality of life (the recession is just a right-wing fiction to keep taxes down) and we should be seeing the results by now.
The big issue is not unemployment - it's over-employment - too many people doing pointless things and producing garbage of one sort or another.

I agree we are very wealthy in terms of quality of life, also in tangible benefits, health, "things" and holidays spring to mind. The word recession is used when the country is not growing financially. I am not sure it is a fiction by the political right, it is certainly a measure used in a capitalist market economy and there are both left and right politics there.

If you could persuade the general populace to accept less money, mobile phones, take away food and big TV's etc, etc, we would be able to afford to pay pensions earlier, subsidizing more of the aging population.

Trouble is, unless you are a dictator or totalitarian state, people would not accept this and would go on strike saying how unfair it was that they didn't have as much as they had before and they were jolly cross and would sit in the middle of a public space (as long as it did not get too cold) until some one (it is usually someone else who has to fix this) sorts it out for them

 

[devonwoody]

Being an ex insurance man, I retired at 55, downsized and started to draw on a private pension (payed in by me 100%) which was then topped up when I reached 65 with the OAP.

It can still be done, give up those Atlantic/Pacific air travel holidays, use that money to pay for a private pension, (go walking in the UK for holidays, you will then live longer as well, the planet will be healthier also) the young will get your jobs at lower wage cost and I am confident it will work, it worked for me.
The fat cats don't like what I did tho.

 

[RogerS]

.....a private pension .....
.....

I had something similar, dw. Turned out to be the biggest scam going....a regular Ponzi scheme....called a Standard Life Endowment Policy

 

[misterfish]

Of course the government allow you to defer taking your pension giving you a bigger pension when you do eventually decide to take what is due to you. This saves them having to pay you now, means you'll be getting the pension for a shorter time and you'll probably continue paying NI and income tax.

Misterfish

 

[woodbloke]

Being an ex insurance man, I retired at 55, downsized and started to draw on a private pension (payed in by me 100%) which was then topped up when I reached 65 with the OAP.

I don't have a private pension scheme of any sort...I've just got two final salary HMG pensions schemes to draw on :mrgreen: plus the OAP one when I get to 65 - Rob

 

[devonwoody]

And you didnt have to strike for it last week, you lucky bugg er.

Mind you my wife has got somethink similar.