A new report for the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) has suggested that the state pension age could rise to as much as 70. Workers currently under the age of 45 may have to work until they’re 68 to qualify for state pension, and workers currently under 30 could work until they’re 70. The changes may be necessary to cope with longer life expectancy, and a higher ratio of pensioners to workers.
The BBC reports –
“… at least six million people face the prospect of having to work longer… “This report is going to be particularly unwelcome for anyone in their early 40s, as they’re now likely to see their state pension age pushed back another year,” said Tom McPhail, head of retirement at Hargreaves Lansdown. “For those in their 30s and younger, it reinforces the expectation of a state pension from age 70, which means an extra two years of work.” … In an extreme scenario, experts from the Government Actuary’s Department (GAD) said the state pension age could be raised as high as 70 as soon as 2054… Under existing plans, the state pension age is due to rise to 68 for those born after 1978. The “extreme” scenario involves an assumption that people spend 32% of their adult life in retirement. The conventional assumption until now has been that people will spend 33.3% of their lives in retirement… In the worst-case situation, the GAD calculations also suggest that the change in the retirement age from 67 to 68 could be pulled forward by as much as 16 years… So while that increase is not due to happen until 2044, it could be brought in as soon as 2028, affecting those now in their late 50s.”