...now 60 is just another year older.
Time was I would have started to collect my old age pension today. I understand the need for fairness by equalising men's and women's retirement ages - but I'd always assumed they'd bring the men's age down as well as raising the women's.
I was in my 50s when they decided to raise the women's. We were assured that women already in their 50s would not be affected. They lied.
They recently changed it again so that my friend, whose birthday is not till July, instead of retiring in September, has to wait till next March.
On the plus side for her, she will receive the new higher flat rate pension, while I will miss it by days. My male school friends will be similarly recompensed.
Meanwhile, the retirement age for all will eventually rise to 67. And there are mutterings that it will one day in the not too distant future rise to 70.
This is because we are all living much longer. For now.
Bad luck for those who don't. Bad luck for those in hard physical jobs who just can't do them any more. Bad luck for those with problems that restrict their ability to continue to work, or cause them to collapse in exhaustion at the end of a challenging day. (Try teaching 30 of other people's recalcitrant children in your late 60s. There will be a lot of teachers - the group I know most about - dying before they even draw their pensions.)
And bad luck for any young person who thought the very high unemployment rate among under-25s was likely to reduce any time soon. Sorry. The oldies are going to be stuck ahead of you for years to come. Whether they want to, or are capable of it, or not.
Well at least I can get free prescriptions now, and travel around London for free.
Happy Birthday Val! They have upped the retirement ages here too. If you still want to retire at 62, you get less Social Security than if you retire at 70.
ReplyDeleteHappy Birthday Val!! I'm sorry I forgot, circumstances wiped everything else out of my mind
ReplyDeleteHappy Birthday Val.
ReplyDeleteI'm 61 now. I don't get a pension as I was a stay at home Mum.
When I went to see about a Bus Pass I was told I had to be 62.. that will be this December.. just you watch they'll go and scrap it in November... LOL.
Well, I am the old lady of the bunch, I will be 66 this June. And I started collecting Social Security at 62, the age we can first start collecting. Since I had to quit working at age 60 to care for my mom, I took it right away. Seems here too, that a lot of people die before they even have a chance to collect it. Thank Goodness old Romney didn't get in or it would probably be gone . Anyway, Happy Birthday Val!
ReplyDeleteHappy Birthday Val :0)
ReplyDeleteWhen I started/left school, the deal with successive Governments was I worked, paid my taxes and in return, I could retire at 60. I SHOULD now have 4 years to go to get the pension - which is hardly a fortune! - I've worked all my life for, but thanks to someone somewhere in their feather-bedded tax-payer funded nest, I now have to work another 10, by which time, assuming the job I have now is still around, I will have been in employment for 50 YEARS!! Having anticipated since the age of 16 that I could finally stop working after 44 years, it's REALLY done a number on my head :0(
No problem, I actively tried to forget but it was not to be!
ReplyDelete