The state pension age is currently 66, with plans already in place to increase this to 67 between 2026-2028, and to 68 between 2044-2046.
However, recent reports suggest that the government is looking to bring in the rise much sooner.
The National Pensioners Convention is fundamentally opposed to further rises in the state pension age.
It is claimed that the Treasury wants the rise to 68 to come in as early as 2037 or potentially earlier. The government’s plan of linking the state pension age to average life expectancy doesn’t make any sense, as the latest research shows that rises in life expectancy have now come to a halt and health inequalities are rising.
Example, men in Richmond-on-Thames will, on average, live healthily until the age of 71, while for men in Blackpool, a healthy life expectancy is just 53 years, meaning they will wait in bad health, unable to work for more than a decade, before qualifying for their state pension.
Life expectancy for men in Blackpool is 74-1 years and for women is 79 (2018-2020), both lower than national averages.
Not everyone will be able to keep working up to the SPA either through ill health or unemployment. Groups like family carers and disabled workers are particularly vulnerable and many will find they are too old for work, but too young to retire.
3.5 million people aged between 50 and 64 are out of the workforce already.
Many of them are in poor health and with few savings by the time they reach state pension age.
Millions of future workers will rely solely on the state pension to fund their retirement, so raising the SPA means that they will end up working longer, paying more and getting less out.
The NPC believes that the SPA should be 65 for men and women, with a view to reducing it further.
Let us not forget, pensioners were workers once and workers are the pensioners of the future.
Rodney Sadd
NPC supporter, Crowland
