Raising pension age will ‘condemn millions to misery’

Raising the state pension age too fast will condemn millions of people to a “miserable and impoverished life” in the run-up to retirement, a charity has warned.

The current state pension age is 66 and is due to increase to 67 in 2028 and 68 by 2039 – but ministers are considering plans to bring this forward to the mid-2030s. A faster rise would put millions of people approaching the state pension age at risk, Age UK has warned. It found more than 3.5m people aged between 50 and 64 are classed as economically inactive and, of these, 1.3m are sick and half a million are caring for family.

Overall, 1.5m of these households have no cash savings at all and 540,000 had savings of £250 or less.