The age of retirement has always been a contentious issue with the public. On the one hand, the general public holding firm on their desire to retire early and on the other, the government attempting to balance the pension book.
The almost certain winner is the government as they do their best to plug the pension deficit while still giving the pubic a fair deal. This coupled by the fact that Britain has an ageing population leads to an inevitable consequence; the state pension age creeping up.
Traditionally, men had to wait longer than women to qualify for a state pension, however that is all changing, moving to a more fairer system where both sexes would eventually retire at 65. Or would they? Well, not according to new plans being drawn up by the government which could see the state pension age creep up to 66. This would mean that a proportion of women, around 30,000, who initially thought they would be able to retire at 64 will now have to wait till they are 66. Women who were born between the 6th of March and the 5th of April 1954 will be impact the most by this new ruling potentially costing them around £5k per year based on the current pension rate of £97.65 per week.
It has been estimated that as many as 5.1 million people will be impacted by this change to the pension age which is due to come into affect between 2018 and 2020. It is certainly clear that the government is not taking this decision to increase the state pension age lightly, but when faced with the prospect of funding a pensioner’s retirement, in some cases for over 30 years, they may have little choice in the matter.