The government has legislated to phase in a higher State Pension age, which is the age you have to be before you can get your pension from the state.
The days of women in the UK getting their State Pension at 60 and men getting theirs at 65 are long gone, so forget it!
You can dig in deeper to the proposals by following this link to the government’s paper that sets out the phased introduction of higher State Pension ages. And you can use the governments pension-age checker on this link to get the specific age that you can claim the State Pension.
Going up!
In essence, the phasing-in proposals no longer distinguish between men and women and say this:
|
Your date of birth |
Your State Pension age |
|
6/1/1953 to 5/1/1954 |
Between your 65th and 66th birthdays |
|
6/10/1954 to 5/4/1960 |
At 66 years old |
|
6/4/1960 to 5/3/1961 |
Between your 66th and 67th birthdays |
|
6/3/1961 to 5/4/1977 |
At 67 years old |
|
6/4/1977 to 5/4/1978 |
Between your 67th and 68th birthdays |
|
6/4/1978 onwards |
At 68 years old |
Don’t forget to use the pension-age checker on the link above to get the exact age you can get your State Pension.
The government is keeping the age under review and it could change again in the future. But the good news is that you can currently start drawing from any personal pension scheme you might have from the age of 55. So if you have a workplace pension, a personal pension with a pension provider, or a Self-Invested Personal Pension (SIPP), you can keep alive your dreams of an earlier retirement.
It’s not worth much anyway
Sadly, I fall into the bracket of people who can collect their State Pension at 67, and so does my wife, which is a situation that seemed unfair to one of my elderly relatives. He got his when he was 65, and his wife got hers at 60! How times change. But let’s not forget that the upside to the rising State Pension age is that it has become necessary because we are, on average, living longer than people used to.
The amount of money you’ll get from the State Pension is low and currently stands at just £164.35 per week. But just as the age you’ll get it is under pressure, so the amount you’ll get is under pressure too, which means I can’t see it rising much above the rate of inflation in the future. So it strikes me as being very important to save additional money to help you finance your retirement.
You can get tax advantages by saving in some sort of pension wrapper, or in an Individual Savings Account (ISA). Here at The Motley Fool, we believe that investing in shares within your tax-free wrapper could be one of the best ways to build up your long-term retirement pot of savings. If you’re planning to take your retirement-saving seriously, you’ve come to the right place. I learned a lot by tuning into the daily articles and by having a good rummage around the website.