The Office for National Statistics (ONS) this week revealed that life expectancy in the UK is still falling, four years after the Covid-19 pandemic.
The average man can expect to live for 78.6 years, while a woman 82.6 years. Compared to the period between 2017 and 2019, life expectancy was 79.3 years for men and 83 for women.
Although this does not sound like much, there are fears that life expectancy in the UK has reached its peak. These figures also fuels an ongoing debate about the age at which people can take their state pension age.
The state pension age is due to rise to 68 by the mid-2040s, but experts argue the decline in healthy life expectancy should form a key part in the debate into whether it should rise further.
Helen Morrissey, head of retirement analysis, Hargreaves Lansdown, said the ONS figures showed a “shocking decline in healthy life expectancy in England”.
There are fears that the government might even raise the state pension further, and earlier this year a think tank even suggested that the state pension age must rise from 66 to 70 or 71 by 2050 to remain affordable.
The state pension is unaffordable, it is essentially a pay-as-you-go system. Successive governments have used the National Insurance Contributions of current workers to pay those on the state pension.
This might just be because it is a handy little tool that can be used as a political football, particularly around general election time. You only need to look at how much was of the triple lock that decides how much the state pension rises by, as evidence of that.
Why not take it out of the hands of greedy self-serving MPs and give it to an apolitical group or commission who can make long term decisions that are made in the interest of Brits?
That would make sure the state pension was not used to further the likes of Rachel Reeves’s careers.
The really sad and depressing thing is that our young people are paying into a system that is – on its current course – unsustainable.
If things continue as they are, more of them will be likely to die before they can get at it.
