Pensions Age to ..... 72 !?

listermint

Nothing more than a no context tweet for this one

https://mobile.twitter.com/paulodonoghue93/status/1446182655544934403?s=24

But 72 seems an outlandish age to be pushing pensions to. Hoping people will drop dead before they can get one or at max have it for only two years or so .

What says after hours

Tabnabs

My salary far exceeds the crappy private sector pension I will have, so I'm happy to trundle on and enjoy a good quality of life.

JimmyVik

I posted in a thread about this oin pensions, but it seems to be gone now.

Im voting whoever says they will keep the pension age at 65 or 66.

At this stage of my life all I care about is how much i'll be taxed and when i get my state pension.

They are turning it into a carrot on a stick that you will get ever closer to but will never reach.

Ive had enough of FF and FG. Swore id never vote SF, but if they come put and promise me pension age stays at 65 then ill vote for them.

Lea and Michael have promised so much and not delivered (€50k before you get into the high tax bracket among other things), might be time to let someone else promise and hope they deliver.

Sleepy

Looks like there's going to be a huge swathe of unemployed people in their 60s and 70s in 30 years tbh. Anyone losing their job in their 50s already has a hard time finding a new one so expect to see a lot of "long-term unemployed" that will, for all intents and purposes, be retired

Most who aren't in a public sector or semi-state role with the rock-solid job security that goes along with it will do well to be able to keep their jobs much beyond 65 (though I'd expect public servants current contracts to ensure they still get out the door with their full pension at 65).

Henry Ford III

Old Age Pension is payable from age 66 currently. Just saying.

listermint

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117991763#Comment_117991763

Ok.... What does that have to do with raising it 6 years and beyond...

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117991742#Comment_117991742

Very though provoking. Since you're so familiar with SF, maybe you can let us know how they intend to pay for all their promises.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117991742#Comment_117991742

Any party can claim they won't increase the age, but within a few years they will have to anyway as it will become unaffordable.

seamus

The whole notion requires something of a radical overhaul of how we view society. The concept of pensions views society as revolving door of workers in and workers out. Gristle to the mill.

When modern pensions were originally conceived, it was built on the calculation that a certain proportion of people would die before they got to pension age, thereby making the system affordable. As one would expect, in the century since the number of people surviving to pension age has increased dramatically.

I'm not 100% sure what the optimal solution is. One where people can choose to retire at 65 on a full pension, without being forced to, seems obvious. We should also overhaul how pension payments work. Maybe increase the pension contributions from employers; make it mandatory for employers to pay (say) 5-10% of the employee's salary into a national pension fund. Half the payment goes into a social fund, the other half goes into a personal fund. Both funds are managed for interest over time and are legally/constitutionally protected from the government; i.e. they are not available to be used for state spending under any circumstances.

When the person retires then, they get a fixed payment from the social fund - regardless of how much they worked in their lifetime - and they also get top-up payments from their personal fund. This ensures that there is a minimum payment, but that there is salary-based aspect to it.

The big question over retirement is always about who is going to pay for the pensions. And the reason it's a question is because government always assume that future generations will pay for it. We need to reset that now to ensure that people working today, are paying for their own pensions rather than hoping that there will be money in the future which hasn't been raided by a future government, or hasn't disappeared because the economy has stagnated for a decade.

JimmyVik

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117991773#Comment_117991773

No idea, but FF/FG arent doing it for me. Voted for one or other of them for the last 30 years. Cant do it again. This pension stuff is the straw that broke the camels back for me.

I see sheep

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117991757#Comment_117991757

Good point, even if the pension age is raised to crazy ages like 72, just leave your job at 65 and go on the dole 😎

I see sheep

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117991773#Comment_117991773

We know FF/FG don't have the answers.

Let's see how SF do, you could be right or you could be wrong, no one knows until they get a chance.

lertsnim

I'd agree with them if it was a case of TD's not getting their pensions until 72 also. They should lead by example.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

The populace will be healthier at 65 than they are now as life expectancy goes up and medicine modernises.

Someone's going to have to foot the bill for an larger pensioner population.

Sleepy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117991808#Comment_117991808

We're already seeing this tbh. I personally know of half a dozen people who either lost a job in their 50s or gave one up and haven't made (or didn't make) any effort to find a new one between that time and their 65th birthday... Some of them even availed of state-funded Solás and University courses as past-times (i.e. doing courses that were interesting to them but which in no way enhanced their employment prospects). So while they weren't officially a pensioner, they were to all intents and purposes retired and living off the state.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117991817#Comment_117991817

That's babies talk.

You know well SF don't have a magic money tree to pay for all their promises but you'll vote for them anyway in a huff.

I see sheep

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117991909#Comment_117991909

I certainly won't be voting for them in a huff, I've never voted FF/FG so I've been waiting my whole life to get them out.

You don't know what will or won't happen with SF in power, there's only one way to find out.

There's a lot to be said for having a decent private pension fund.

Henry Ford III

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117991771#Comment_117991771

Because some people have mentioned age 65 in this thread. That ship has sailed.

is_that_so

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117991808#Comment_117991808

If life expectancy goes close to 100, and it will, it's not that crazy. Can't really have a public pension system paying for the equivalent of nearly 80% of your working life.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058212191/pensions-age-to-72

I don’t get his logic. We do need to increase the pension age but not doing it earlier doesn’t add to pension costs as they are paid out of present day earnings. 72 seems very high. Do we need people to just have 8 years of pensionable age, on average.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117991956#Comment_117991956

Well if that’s his assumption then he should say it. That would be a huge increase in the next few years and unlikely as increases are flatlining or reversing( in the US).

listermint

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117991975#Comment_117991975

Well we had a retired pensions ombudsman in an article today talking about fairness and some fictitious person coming from Saudi Arabia or South Africa at the age of 55 and working for ten years and claiming full pension.

And I'm left wondering how is this person ? How many 55 year olds are able to move here gain employment at that age and get the rights to do that. It all sounded very hog washy whilst this fella site on his public sector pension from whatever leafy south of the river suburb he hails from.

Fann Linn

Catch 22 really. As a PS I think I can stay in work full-time until I'm 70 or 75. Not really sure of the exact date, but at the same time, by me hanging on for an extra 10 years or so I'm just excluding a young person from securing my role.

Chips Lovell

The issue, as Seamus alluded to, is that people are generally healthier and living a lot longer than even a few decades ago. That means that there's a.) more people living till pension age and b.) pensions are being drawn for much longer. The upshot is that the cost to the state is increasing significantly.

The options are either accepting that we spend more and more on pensions, reducing pensions or increasing the pension age in light of the fact that people are generally far healthier in their sixties than they once were.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117991992#Comment_117991992

But that is a problem. And in reverse you can work 30 years and not get a full pension.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117992001#Comment_117992001

I don’t think pension age increases apply to the PS. You have a contract. Private sector employees don’t. It might depend on the contract though.

MerlinSouthDub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117991803#Comment_117991803

What solution would you suggest to pay for the state pension with people living longer and the workforce getting older?

If life expectancy reaches 100, is 65 still the right retirement age? Why not 60 or 55? The question of the right retirement age boils down to fairness. Keeping a fixed retirement age simply means that those still working will need to pay higher and higher taxes to pay for those who are retired. There is no magic money tree.

The SF policy on this is pure populist politics, short term thinking designed to capture votes without any future plan or costing.

LeeroyJ.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117991941#Comment_117991941

Maxing out your tax-free pension contributions is the best thing you can do, I fully expect state pension to be scrapped in most countries by the time I hit pension age.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117992043#Comment_117992043

No it won’t be. Instead people like you with pensions equal to or higher than the state pension will get a reduced pension, or none. People lower than the state pension will be topped up.

Nobody is going to starve. Do you think that a large pensioner class is going to vote for zero pensions?

marvin80

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117991909#Comment_117991909

Funnily enough it seems like FF/FG have a magic money tree - many examples including the Children's Hospital, throwing more and more money at the health service every year without solving any issues, National Broadband Plan.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117992080#Comment_117992080

And tried to negate the spending by increasing the pension age and introducing water charges.

That's of course until politics by populists took over though.

PureBred

Agree with all the comments re Sinn Fein promises... they are not thought through. As it stands there are about 4.5 people of working age to support each person aged 65 and over. This is going to fall rapidly to 2 by 2050. Whos going to pay for the pension increases?

I'm 40 now and would like to retire @ 65. So I feel its now my responsibility to bridge the gap between 65 and whatever the pension age will be in 25 years, through savings etc. Dont want to have it to get to a stage where I need the kids to support me.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117992094#Comment_117992094

are you suggesting that people should accept a higher pension age so that one-off houses in rural Carlow can have fibre broadband?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117992144#Comment_117992144

A once off payment like that won’t affect future pensions

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117992097#Comment_117992097

I’d like to see the workings out there. I assume that it is if present pension age and life expectancy trends continue the same.

Amadan Dubh

National debt went from €144bn in 2010 to €240bn today.

There is a magic money tree there that FF and FG have been picking from.

seamus

@Chips Lovell wrote:

The options are either accepting that we spend more and more on pensions, reducing pensions or increasing the pension age in light of the fact that people are generally far healthier in their sixties than they once were.

One of the things that makes the mooted 72 more personal for me, is the fact that my father died at 72. He "officially" retired at 66, but he didn't have a lot in the way of hobbies and enjoyed his work, so he kept on doing a bit. But he was drawing down a public and private pension, so he was able to scale it right back and was free to take off whole months to do whatever.

He slowed down quite a bit in the latter years, and the pressure from even the small amount of work he had, was starting to take its toll.

I'm looking at the proposed 72 now, and thinking hobbies or no hobbies, my Dad having to continue working at full tilt - even at 50% - would have left him miserable and exhausted in his last years.

Part of pension planning should be aiming to give people the ability to ramp down and enjoy the twilight of their lives, to put their feet up, go for walks in the park, take off for a old fogies holiday in Spain if they want to. Not forcing people to continue doing 40 hour weeks to put food on the table in the hope that they might reach 72 and be able to spend a couple of years without pressure before they die.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117992165#Comment_117992165

I never said it would. One poster said that the government were trying to bridge the spending gap by introducing water charges and increasing the pension age, but those pesky populists are getting in the way.

Which suggests the poster sees increasing the pension age as a trade off that has to be made to have things like rural broadband to one-off houses, and one of the most expensive hospital projects ever built anywhere in the world, and anyone objecting is a bloody populist.

(The capital and current budgets are of course separate and not really either/or trade-offs.)

Mrs OBumble

Abolish all pensions: oldness is not a fundamental reason to need social welfare.

If an adult cannot work because they are sick or disabled, they get a sickness or disability benefit.

If they cannot work because they cannot get a job, they get the dole.

If they just want time out of the workforce with no obligations, they need to save up and fund it for themselves.

No matter what age they are.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117992198#Comment_117992198

What about private pensions?

After the abolition of pensions, are the government going to pay back all that prsi we paid to fund them?

TP_CM

It should probably depend on what you do, should it? I don't mind coding for another few years, especially if I can do it remotely and probably 3 or 4 days a week at that stage. It's not exactly a difficult job if you're permanent in a big company. For the final 5 years you wouldn't give a crap about performance reviews and what anyone thinks really. Tip away as much or as little as you want.

But if you're digging roads, or working in construction, I think 72 is just not realistic. Most of their bodies are wrecked by the time they're 50. It makes logical sense when I think about it like that, but how to set up a system which works like that could be difficult and complex, and tested in some way by a few chancers who don't want to fall in line with the spirit of the idea.

daheff

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058212191/pensions-age-to-72

So couple of things from me. Who is this guy and why would you pay any heed to this random 'no context tweet'? Never heard of him?

Secondly -If people save for their own pension throughout their working life, then they don't need to wait until the govt old age pension kicks in to retire.

Thirdly - If Govt stopped treating all the PRSI taxation as current income and current expenditure they would be able to plan to use the tax contributions for people across their working life to be able to allow a State pension be paid at 65 (or whatever arbitrary age is decided). They have about 40 years of possible tax payments to put aside for a known payment requirement at 65. A few actuaries working for the department might go a long way to resolving this issue and not making it such a political issue.

retalivity

I'm mid to late 30s, and pretty much working off the assumption that when/if I get to 65 or later, there will be no state pension. It's completely unsustainable with current demographic trends, never mind what the world will be like in 30 years.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117992322#Comment_117992322

I’d worry about cognitive decline there. And companies will try to replace you.

if we are working to 72 we should try and encourage jobs for older people from 65 on, nothing too stressful and maybe 3-4 days a week.

listermint

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117992375#Comment_117992375

He's a reporter for news talk.

Assuming you'll hear alot of this soon

https://amp.rte.ie/amp/1252473/?__twitter_impression=true

Rte article of our classic cushy civil servant with his hypothetical foreigner scenario.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117992396#Comment_117992396

we could invite more young people to come live and work here.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117992408#Comment_117992408

I don’t get your problem with the second issue he mentioned. The Irish system is set up in such a way that if you start late you can get 100% pension after ten years. But if you start early and only work ten years it’s pro rated. You get 1/4 of the full pension. Don’t work at all and it’s 100%, although means tested.

Markus Antonius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117991909#Comment_117991909

SF would have everyone who chooses not to work to recieve a pension from age 18 and a free house to go with it.

listermint

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117992455#Comment_117992455

How are these people coming here getting a job / visa at that age we don't have a freedom of movement with those countries it's not a real scenario.... If your going to try leverage a point I think he should have used something substantial.

twowheelsonly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117992198#Comment_117992198

We have thousands of people with decent enough jobs who can't afford somewhere to live or have to pay ridiculous money to do so.

Saving 300k + separately so they can kick back at 65 after 40 or more years of work isn't even close to being on their radar.

seamus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117992438#Comment_117992438

Ultimately the notion of continuous economic growth; the one which underpins a lot of our taxation and pension systems; is a pyramid scheme. Eventually there will stop being "extra" young people to bring into the bottom of the pyramid to hold up the top.

Global population is predicted to top out in the next 30-60 years, at which point any country whose economy is still dependent on pure capitalism and endless growth, will suffer badly as the failure of the pyramid cascades through the economy. Die-hards like the US and Australia will compete to encourage inward migration, offering more and more benefits to young people who join their pyramids, but it's just rearranging deckchairs.

We need to restructure the whole thing so that we focus on providing what people need in the here and now while ensuring there are enough resources left for those in the future. Continually growing in order to allow people to hoard resources in the here and now will eventually snap back. If that snap back hasn't already begun.