The country is not ready to raise the state pension age

These reports have been denied by the Pensions Minister Torsten Bell. But we still wait with bated breath for what the Morrissey review reports back on this issue imminently.

Many of you readers may wonder what the fuss is about, what harm could working one more year do? But having looked at this issue in depth at the Centre for Ageing Better, we know the answer is a significant amount of harm.

The increase of the state pension age to 66, which occurred between 2018 and 2020, caused poverty rates to double among 65-year-olds impacting an additional 100,000 people in this age group. The current ongoing rise in state pension age to 67 is expected to negatively impact even more older people, according to a report from the Work and Pensions Committee published just a few days ago.

The fact is that most people’s ideas about their working lives are probably outdated. The traditional cliff-edge retirement of working 9-5, five days a week, before retiring at state pension age for a life without work is a thing of the past.

Many people will have the decision of when they retire taken out of their hands. Working until you are 68 is very far from the norm. Only one in five people currently do so.

A range of reasons might force people’s hand including poor health, ageism, caring responsibilities, or unsupportive employers.  An earlier-than-expected exit from work can leave people without adequate financial resources for retirement.

Ill-health is a common reason why people find their working life ending prematurely.

Healthy life expectancy, the average number of years a person is expected to live in good health before the onset of chronic pain, mobility issues, or illnesses that require assistance or restrict daily activities, has dropped to the lowest levels in the UK since records began 15 years ago.

In the most recent figures for England, healthy life expectancy was 60.9 years for men and 61.3 years for women. But this only tells part of the story because there are huge regional differences. The healthy life expectancy for men in Blackpool for example is 50.9 years. We cannot just assume that we as a nation are just going to keep living longer and healthier lives without significant government intervention.

While the ageist stereotype is of wealthy Baby Boomers spending their 60s enjoying mortgage-free, luxurious lives on golf courses and cruises, the reality is very different.

More than 1 million working-age people in their sixties are living in poverty. This is almost a quarter of this age group, the highest proportion of any age group above 25.

Our recent Tale of Two 60s report found that the number of people in their 60s living financially precarious lives had increased significantly over the past 20 years – and was set to rise even more rapidly over the next seven years.

Those most reliant on the state pension, such as people on low incomes, women, carers, Disabled people and people from racially minoritised backgrounds, will be most impacted by further extensions of the state pension age, thus deepening this country’s financial inequality.

For too many people, their 60s are a time of huge financial stress, living in desperate hope they have sufficient resources to last out until state pension age. The government should not be looking to extend this suffering further.

Ageism in employment and in the labour market is far more extensive than the small number of age discrimination cases brought each year.

Research for our anti-ageism Age Without Limits campaign found that the average age at which people think someone stops being seen as a desirable candidate for employment is 55. One in four people think it does not make business sense to employ someone over 50 because they will be a slow and unadaptable worker.

No wonder then that so many people have told us they feel frozen out of the workplace in their 50s and 60s. How are people supposed to keep earning until 68 in a labour market that does not recognise their huge value?

If the government want to proceed with further state pension age rises, it needs to create a labour market that gives equal opportunity for people in their mid-60s to find work. It also needs to tackle the huge wealth-based gap in healthy life expectancy across the country.

This is a lot for government to do before 2037.

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Dr Carole Easton OBE is Chief Executive at the Centre for Ageing Better.

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