Charity groups are warning the government that any rise in the State Pension Age (SPA) will see thousands plunged into poverty. The SPA is currently 66 for both males and females, but a review is set to be published this year and may result in a speeding up of published rises.
In 2026-28 the planned SPA is 67, then between 2033-39 it will be 68 years old, but this schedule is being criticised alongside any new plans. In a warning to pensioners and the government, Caroline Abrahams, Charity Director at Age UK, said: “There is no justification for raising the State Pension Age at the moment, especially as we know that the people who will lose out the most are those unable to work due to ill health and caring responsibilities.
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“As will anyone with few or outdated skills and qualifications who becomes unemployed in mid-life and then finds it impossible to get another job, due in part to rampant ageism in the labour market.”
Ms Abrahams added: “As things stand, and against the context of endemic ageism in the labour market, any decision by the government to make today’s fifty-somethings wait longer for their State Pension would be setting up hundreds of thousands of men and women for a miserable and impoverished few years in their run up to retirement.”
There is also opposition to any change within some parts of the government. Work and Pensions Minister Mel Stride has indicated he is against the SPA increasing and has commented it would leave millions of people in their 40s and 50s having to revise their financial situation.
Stride had previously commented that the impact of the coming SPA review could be “pretty hairy”. A 2017 review, led by John Cridland, established that people should expect to spend on average up to one third of their adult life in retirement. Any increase in the SPA would mean this portion would be reduced.
Experts have forecast an increase in the SPA would plunge tens of thousands of older people into poverty every year and there is no justification for it, as life expectancy is not growing.
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