To politicians, hiking the state pension age has long seemed like an easy fix. Certainly easier than scrapping the triple lock. Downgrading the triple lock would hit pensioners hard and fast. It would create a huge backlash among voters.
Raising the state pension age, by contrast, delays the pain thanks to the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) 10-year warning rule. Means-testing the state pension is another option, but that would be wildly unpopular and a bureaucratic nightmare. So instead, governments have quietly nudged the state pension age ever closer to 70.
On the surface, it seems logical. With life expectancy rising, and policymakers aiming for people to spend around a third of their lives in retirement, increasing the state pension age feels like a no-brainer.
Then the pandemic struck and life expectancy isn’t rising as expected. Another problem is that it varies dramatically, depending on where you live.
If the state pension age keeps rising, many of the most disadvantaged Brits could die before seeing a penny in return for decades of national insurance contributions.
Forever hiking the state pension age is also cruel on manual workers. Expecting someone to keep grafting into their late 60s in physically demanding jobs is unrealistic. If not outright cruel.
One solution could be to introduce flexibility, allowing people to claim their state pension early at a reduced rate.
The other, more radical option, is to downgrade the triple lock. But given its popularity, it would take a brave – or downright daft – politician to touch that.
So for now, the state pension age looks set to keep rising. And we’ll all have to carry on working – if we can.
