School leavers face working until they are 68 under reforms to the pension system announced by the Government.
In its long-awaited pensions White Paper, the Government said it would begin increasing the state pension age to 66 from 2024, rising to 68 from 2044. The move will help pay for restoring the link between the basic state pension and earnings from as early as 2012, subject to affordability.
The Government also announced plans to introduce a National Pensions Saving Scheme (NPSS) into which workers would automatically be enrolled in 2012.
The Government said increasing the basic state pension in line with earnings rather than prices would double its value by 2050. It said it planned to restore the link in 2012, depending on its fiscal position, but it would do so by the end of the next Parliament at the latest.
It also planned to reduce the number of people on the means-tested Pension Credit from 40% now to around a third by 2050.
The number of years needed to qualify for a full basic state pension will be reduced to 30 from 39.
Measures will also be introduced to enable people caring for children or disabled people to build up entitlement to the basic state pension without having to make a minimum level of contributions.
The Government said these reforms should help increase the number of women entitled to a full basic state pension from just 30% now to 70% by 2010.
The Government said it would introduce a new scheme of personal accounts similar to the NPSS recommended by the Pensions Commission chaired by Lord Turner.
The Government said employees would pay in 4% of their earnings between £5,000 and £33,000 a year, with companies contributing 3% and 1% coming from the Government through tax relief. It acknowledged that the introduction of compulsory contributions may be difficult for employers, costing them around £26 billion a year, but it said it would offer support.
marieann
It's alright for the government to say work until you are 68. They have a very well paid job, not at all strenuous, a lot of perks, no money worries, a lot of breaks and no chance of ever having to wait in a queue for health care.
People who have been employed as manual labourers all there lives struggle to make it to 60, a lot of them can't even hang on until 65. You're due to a decent retirement after working hard for so many years and it must be galling to finally get to retirement and not be fit or pain-free enough to enjoy it. How can they expect these people to work those extra years.
Sandie Seward
I fully agree with you on this, Marie, it's one thing for the 'lawmakers' to go on until they reach 68, but as for the poor manual worker who has had to work in tough physical jobs, it's asking too much.
Not everyone can, or would want to, sit at a desk in some air-conditioned, centrally-heated artificial office environment. Some of us had to, (or chose to, in my case), work outdoors in all weathers. This definitly does take it's toll on you, one way or another, and by the time you reach your late fifties you are more than ready to 'come in from the cold' as it were.
I know I was!
Sandie Seward
Have you ever wondered what this first post would look like in 'Pig Latin'? (Otherwise known as 'Backslang'.)?
Well, here it is, courtesy of The Dialectizer Website.
It makes about as much sense as the plain English version issued by the government Admin !
I reckon they will keep putting the pension age back and back every few years, in the hope that more folk will peg it before they are eligible, therefore saving the government having to pay any pension at all !
It makes about as much sense as the plain English version issued by the government Admin !