The past few days have seen some major political moves made and proposed in UK parliament. From health minister Sajid Javid’s outrageous suggestion that people pay for ambulances and GP appointments (aka privatising the NHS) to the news that, at least for now, the so-called ‘menopause leave’ bill has been rejected over apparent fears it will ‘discriminate against men’, there's certainly a lot to keep up with.
In the latest blow by the conservative government, the plans to raise the age of retirement to 68 – initially meant to come into effect in 2046 – have been ‘privately agreed’ to be brought forward, with ministers now proposing to introduce the scheme by the late 2030s. This would mean that most people born after the 1970s could well be working into their late 60s and potentially beyond before they become eligible for a state pension. They say, if you find a job you love, you'll never work a day in your life: does that still ring true for those spending over two thirds of their lives in employment?
It’s – unsurprisingly – not gone down well with employees in their thirties and forties who, in the last two decades, have worked through two major financial recessions, exponentially rising inflation and a global pandemic. To make an obvious point, people (and especially women) are TIRED. The current state pension age is 66, and there were already plans in place to raise it 67 by 2028 – but the trend of increasing the age at which we can retire on a state pension every few years obviously begs the question, where, and when, will it end?
According to The Sun’s chief political correspondent Natasha Clark, a row is raging between Westminster and the DWP (Department of Work and Pensions) as the latter perhaps morbidly, predicts that with falling life expectancy in the UK, many workers won’t even get a chance to access their state pensions or will only benefit from them for a brief time.
An announcement is expected by chancellor Jeremy Hunt this year. The Sun said he wants to raise the retirement age to 68 in the mid-2030s but Mel Stride, the work and pensions secretary, was pushing for 2042.
In short, there will be a growing demographic of people who will work up until they die. A spokesperson told the same publication, ‘There is a real risk that more people will die before they reach retirement and can draw their pensions, given the change in life expectancy projections since 2017, if we were to bring the state pension age increase too far forward.
‘That would be especially true of people in the most deprived areas of the country, where life expectancy is already lower.’
It’s fair to say that PM Rishi Sunak isn’t exactly famed for his compassion when it comes to the most deprived areas of the country – famously promising to redirect funds from impoverished inner city constituencies to wealthy areas like his in leaked footage – but his government has been warned that announcing the new plans in his March budget, as reports suggest he intends to do, could spell catastrophe for the Conservative government ahead of a general election.
As many on social media have pointed out, it does rather make the prospect of paying into a state pension seem entirely redundant when it’s likely it’ll go directly into the hands of the government, who already do a pretty piss poor job of allocating our taxes as it is. While the move would undoubtedly generate extra cash for treasury, aren’t we already paying a high enough price for our government’s incompetence?