this post was submitted on 05 Feb 2024
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UK Politics

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[–] SamsonSeinfelder@feddit.de 32 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

Are there even companies that are looking actively for 65+ yo people? What kind of job are that and how many are there? I swear, we gonna lift the age up and up every decade before we gonna ask the rich to pay their fair share.

[–] baggins@beehaw.org 4 points 9 months ago

I'd like to give you an extra upvote for your username :-)

Don't know about 65+ but I'm 67 in a few weeks and only started my current job two and a half years ago. I think if you don't look or act like a doddery old git, and you have the qualities and outlook required, you're in with a chance. My role for instance is far better suited to a more 'mature' person. They've tried recruiting younger people but most of the ones they took on were not reliable or not up to the job! Some places like B&Q look to older people as they have a wealth of knowledge, Tesco etc. as older people can turn up at 0600 as opposed to others that turn the alarm off and go back to sleep because they've been on the piss until 0400. Obviously there will be exceptions to the rule, but just look at the number of older people staffing the supermarkets. Where I work and across our network of centres there are very few under 50.

It's pants. My daughter (22) will probably have to wait until past 71 at this rate. Some will never be able to stop working.

[–] Fudoshin@feddit.uk 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Shopping baggers is a popular 'career' for elderly people. :/

[–] Elkenders@feddit.uk 3 points 9 months ago

It's cheaper to put in more self-serve checkouts.

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Are there even companies that are looking actively for 65+ yo people?

Maybe Walmart greeters? I don't think they expect people to actually get jobs at 70 years old. I think they expect them to have to cash out early, and then the government will steal a sizable chunk of the money they're owed.

[–] Patch@feddit.uk 2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

We don't have Walmart and our shops don't have greeters, so that's one line of employment we're short of.

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

We don't have Walmart

You guys are lucky!

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

We do have ASDA though and it's basically the same.

[–] Patch@feddit.uk 1 points 9 months ago

Asda was owned by Walmart for a bit, but it isn't anymore. Got sold to the guys who own the Euro Garages petrol station chain. And although it was owned by them, it was never really run like a US Walmart. No greeters, for a start.

[–] driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 16 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Raising the age of retirement is just one of the couple of ways you can reach actuarial equilibrium. The other two are lowering the retirement benefits, or raising the contributions, by the participants or by the sponsor. Everyone of those methods os as useful as the others, but the last one requires taxing, this is why you never listen to politicians talking about how thats an alternative. Tax the rich as they should be, and this is a solved problem.

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Why not force corporations to fill in the gaps? People used to have pensions from their jobs, but those got gobbled up by greedy executives. Surely we can capture some of that back to provide for millions of elderly people.

[–] driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That's the tax part I'm talking about.

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago
[–] Buckshot@programming.dev 3 points 9 months ago

National insurance is supposed to be for our state pension but it's only paid on earned income. I have no idea but I wonder how much it would raise if it was paid on all income?

[–] HowManyNimons@lemmy.world 14 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

Who the fuck are we kidding? I'm going to die at work and so are you.

[–] GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I'm fully expecting there to be no state pension by the time I get there.

[–] Elkenders@feddit.uk 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

100% this. I'm 38 and I'm predicting a crisis where my generation haven't been cared for by their employers with regards to their pension, then the laws ensuring pension conts must be paid came in late into my career and were very small contribution defaults. Then with the high rent and property prices people are forgoing their pension savings to put into living or property early in life so they don't get the compound interest through from early years. I keep doing the sums on my pension and even though I'm now putting 25% in and have been for a few years, it's not like I'm destined to be rolling in it when I retire. Depending on the market (which I don't have faith in either) I'm likely to just be able to retire pretty old and live modestly.

[–] Bonskreeskreeskree@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months ago

So long as you allow it to happen

[–] fifisaac@lemmy.ml 7 points 9 months ago

They want us young people to work ourselves to death

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 7 points 9 months ago

Congratulations on working your entire life and reaching retirement! Psych! Wait longer, bitches!

[–] wewbull@feddit.uk 5 points 9 months ago

Well. I think it was inevitable that the government Ponzi scheme collapsed. Like all such schemes, they only work when there's more people paying-in at the bottom than are extracting value at the top. Our demographics are showing that wasn't being sustained for quite a while now.

Government pensions are sold to us as a savings fund, but they just aren't. Pension funds in general are horribly misused. Nobody in our society can bear that money placed with them to be there for some future dates should be unused.

[–] tenebrisnox@feddit.uk 4 points 9 months ago (2 children)

OK as long as we also adopt a limitarian approach to personal wealth in the UK. Tax personal wealth above £10 million at 100%.

[–] NickwithaC@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Why 10 million? Make the whole nation middle class.

[–] tenebrisnox@feddit.uk 1 points 9 months ago

It’s worth getting a copy of the new book by Ingrid Robeyns extract here. To answer your point directly: surely making everyone “middle class” is a mechanism for dealing with inequality (and poverty).

[–] Fudoshin@feddit.uk 0 points 9 months ago

If @frankPodmore@slrpnk.net read this he'd have an aneurism. He's a big believer in collecting wealth to the tiny 1%.

[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

This is the best summary I could come up with:


The retirement age will have to rise to 71 for middle-aged workers across the UK, according to research into the impact of growing life expectancy and falling birthrates on the state pension.

“But if you bring preventable ill health into the equation, that would have to increase even more,” added Mayhew, who is also professor of statistics at Bayes Business School and has advised the government on rises to the state pension age multiple times as a senior civil servant and in his current roles.

Jonathan Cribb, associate director and head of retirement at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said that while he did not disagree with a higher pension age, increasing it without addressing other cost-saving measures was not “realistic or equitable”.

He added: “It would disproportionately impact poorer individuals whose ill-health means they have shorter lives, and so who receive pensions for less time.”

The Intergenerational Foundation, an independent thinktank, agreed that the pension age had to rise, but questioned on whose shoulders that cost should fall.

“Increasing the state pension age would be a terrible policy – a really bad way of attempting to make people more productive,” he said.


The original article contains 825 words, the summary contains 193 words. Saved 77%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago

But if you bring preventable ill health into the equation, that would have to increase even more

Work until you're almost dead, and if you're healthy enough to actually enjoy retirement, then work some more!