Retirement Age – Born 1956

retirement age - born in 1956What is my retirement age if I was born in 1956?

Well whether you are a man or a woman the answer is the same – you can start claiming your state pension benefits on your 66th birthday. This means that you can retire in 2022.

If you were born before or after 1956 then the answer may be different as there are transitional periods where retirement ages change from 65 to 67, but for anyone born during any part of the year of 1956 you will retire (if you want to) on your 66th birthday.

Of course you have the option to delay taking your state pension benefits until later if that is what you choose to do, and in terms of other pensions, for example personal and company pensions, then they will have their own retirement dates, although a lot of schemes are linked to your state pension age so it may well be the same.

At the moment the earliest you can take your personal pension benefits is age 55 so you could always take those benefits earlier than your State pension age. But in terms of the state pension, there is no option to have it paid any earlier than your retirement age of 66.

You can get a forecast of the amount of state pension that might get by applying to the government for a statement. You can find further information on that here.

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Retirement Age – Born in 1955

retirement age - born in 1955What is my retirement age if I was born in 1955?

If this is the year that you were born then you may be wondering at what age you can claim your state pension benefits. Changes to retirement ages have been equalised and increased for people born in the 50s and you are caught up in those changes.

The simple answer is that, even though when you were growing up you could expect to get your state pension at age 65 if you are a man or 60 if you are a woman, if you were born in 1955 then you can now claim your pension on your 66th birthday. This applies to both men and women who were born in 1955. Therefore you can retire in 2021.

 

How Much Will I Get?

There have also been changes to the amount of State pension that you will get and if you are unsure of how much that will be then check out our guide to how to check how much you will get and how to find out.

If you were born in a different year to 1955 then you can use the search feature on this website to search for your year of birth which should give you the information that you need about your retirement age. Otherwise you can check your retirement age by following our questionnaire.

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Do I Automatically Get My State Pension?

If you are nearing your retirement age and wondering if you automatically get your state pension then the simple answer is no.

Everyone needs to actually claim their state pension and to enable you to do that you will normally be sent a claim form about 4 months before your state pension age. In advance of this you may want to get a forecast of what your state pension may be and you can get this at any time before you retire. If you want to get a forecast of your pension then you can get the relevant form for this on the Government website here.

If you haven’t received a form to claim your state pension and there are only 3 months or less until your state pension is due then you an call the helpline on the freephone number 0800 731 7898. You can also apply for your state pension online here.

So it is a good idea to get organised in advance to make sure that everything is in place for the payment of your state pension when you reach your retirement age. Obviously if you claim your state pension late then payments will be backdated to when they were due to start from so you will not miss out by claiming your state pension too late.

You can also defer your state pension (elect to receive it at a later date) if you do not wish to start claiming it at your state pension age. If you do this then the pension payments will be increased at a level corresponding to how long you have delayed it for.

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Retirement Age – Born in 1959

retirement age - born in 1959When Can I Retire if I was Born in 1959?

The age at which you can take your state pension changes quite quickly for quite a few people, in particular women, for a period of time until it gets to a state pension age of 67 for both women and men.

But for those who were born in 1959 the retirement age (at least the age at which you can draw your state pension benefits) has been fixed at age 66 for both men and women.  So you can retire in 2025. In fact anyone who was born on or after 6th October 1954 has a retirement age of 66. So if you were planning to retire at age 65 (or perhaps in the dim and distant past women had ideas of retiring at age 60) then you will need to rethink.

Pension Age Increases

The reason for the increase in retirement ages beyond 65 has been put down to the fact that life expectancy is increasing and it is only fair and equitable that people spend the same proportion of their working lives in retirement. This means that future generations (who are the ones that actually pay for pensions in payment) will not be unduly penalised by having to pay more for the pensioner population.

 

You can check out how much State pension you might get by checking out our guide.  You also still have time to increase your pension by making payments to a personal or occupational pension if you are able to do that.

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Retirement Age for Women Born in 1965

State Pension Ages have undergone a lot of changes in recent years and that is likely to continue for the foreseeable future as we live longer and so the payment of state pensions for a longer period becomes unsustainable. Also as more people are working longer (and are willing and able to do so) this means many are deferring their retirement until later.

State pensions are funded on a pay as you go basis – in that the current working population pays for the pensions of the current pensioners. So in order to keep the balance of those working being able to fund those who are retired, pension age naturally needs to in crease as the number of retired people increases.

So, for women who were born in 1965, they are part of the new generation of retirees who will not be able to claim their state pension benefits until they are 67. And in fact there is the possibility that this may be even higher by the time they retire. There is constant monitoring of state pension ages, life expectancy and numbers of people in the workforce to ensure that the state pension is at a sustainable level for the nation.

If you were born in 1965, whether you are a woman or a man then currently you can claim your state pension at age 67. As the minimum age for claiming a personal pension is likely to be 10 years earlier than your state pension age then it is possible that this will increase from the current age of 55 to 57 by that time.

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Pension Age for Women Born in 1953

retirement age - born in 1953When Can I Retire if I was Born in 1953?

If you are a woman who was born in 1953 then as you may know you are caught in quite a complicated area to work out your retirement age, or at least the age that you can expect to start claiming your state pension benefits.

The retirement age increases dramatically for those who were born in 1953 insomuch that those born in early 1953 have a retirement age of over 62 whereas those born in late 1953 have a retirement age of 65 – the point at which retirement ages are equalised for men and women. This is a massive and quick change and a lot of women are not happy about this.

Below we have tried to make it easy to understand what the State Pension Age is for a woman born in 1953:

Born (1953) State Pension Age
1 January to 5 January  6 September 2015
6 January to 5 February 6 November 2015
6 February to 5 March 6 January 2016
6 March to 5 April 6 March 2016
6 April to 5 May 6 July 2016
6 May to 5 June 6 November 2016
6 June to 5 July 6 March 2017
6 July to 5 August 6 July 2017
6 August to 5 September 6 November 2017
6 September to 5 October 6 March 2018
6 October to 5 November 6 July 2018
6 November to 5 December 6 November 2018
6 December to 31 December 6 March 2019

So as you can see it really depends in the exact date in 1953 that you were born – so someone who is maybe only a month or two different in age will have a wildly different retirement date if they were born in 1953.

Although retirement ages are equalised between men and women at 65 on 6th November 2018, the transition to a retirement age of 66 is accelerated quite quickly from this point and only a few women will actually have a retirement age of 65. It then jumps up to a retirement age of 65 and 3 months on its way to equalising all retirement ages at 66.

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What is the Retirement Age for an MP?

The question of ‘what is the retirement age for an MP’? is obviously a hot topic in particular after the last few years of expenses scandals and changes in pensions legislation, as well as maybe of those close to retirement age being upset that MPs have gold-plated pensions that allow them to retire early on a generous income. Many people feel that the retirement age for an MP should be the same as anyone else – but is it?

Changes have been made as recently as this year (2015) to the Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund which means not only a change in the way benefits are calculated but also to the retirement age for MPs.

The retirement age for MPs whether they are members of the old final salary scheme, or the new scheme that was introduced in May 2015, is age 65. This may surprise some people as they think that MPs can retire much earlier than this.

However, there are plans in place to increase the retirement age for MPs in line with the increase in the State Pension Age (which will be increasing to 66 and 67 depending on when you were born). So in future all MPs will have the same retirement age as the State Pension Age for the benefits that are payable from the new scheme. But for those who are protected by the old final salary scheme (which is those within 10 years of retirement), and for the benefits that have previously been earned in the old scheme, their retirement age will remain at 65 (for those benefits)as long as they are no longer serving as an MP when they reach that age.

So the long and short of it is that the retirement age for MPs will increase in line with any increases in the state pension age, but like any other company pension scheme where benefits have been accrued in a previous version of the scheme, the old scheme rules apply for the period of membership of that scheme.

 

 

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What is the Retirement Age for a Footballer?

Beckham-32Due the the relatively short lifespan of being able to play football professionally, in the past the retirement age for a professional footballer was set at 35 (according to the rules of the scheme that professional footballers were allowed to join).

Most footballers were unlikely to go on playing past their 35th birthday with only a few limited number of exceptions. Some would go on to play for lower league teams after this but most of them would hang up their boots with at age 35 or before – quite often due to the higher chance of injury, the higher level of effort required to maintain that level of fitness, or even due to an accumulation of previous injuries.

There have been a number of incarnations of the pension scheme that has been run for professional footballers and up until 2006 the retirement age was set at 35. However, with the advent of many new rules and changes to pension scheme legislation, the retirement age was increased to age 55 for those joining after 5 April 2006.

As with most schemes there is provision in the rules of the scheme to retire at an earlier date due to incapacity.

Of course State Pension Age for professional footballers is no different to any other working person so they would have to wait until the relevant state pension age to take their state pension benefits.

Obviously those players who earn large sums in the premier league will have accountants to advise them how to invest their money for retirement and will probably not need to worry too much about pension benefits! But those whose retirement age is now 55 will have to find a way of either earning more money after their footballing career is over, or else using that money wisely to live on. But obviously if you retire at age 35 that is a long time to have to find funds to sustain a similar lifestyle.

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Is Personal Pension Retirement Age Linked to State Pension Age?

So if you are wondering if personal pension retirement age is linked to State Pension Age then the short answer is possibly! In the past it was possible to take your personal pension at age 50 but this was in the days when the State Pension Age for women was 60 and for men was 65.

The retirement age for personal pensions was then increased to 55 in April 2010. At that time, and since, the government has said that it wants a correlation between the retirement age for personal pensions and the State Pension Age. Currently the policy is for the difference to be 10 years. This therefore begs the question as to is that 10 year age gap going to continue? The idea is that it will continue, and if anything it may get smaller, possibly even a gap of 5 years. However, there is no actual legislation in place to make this change so at the moment it is still really speculation.

So with State Pension Age increasing over the coming years, can we expect that the minimum age for taking your personal pension will increase above 55 soon? Even those within 10 years of thinking they may be able to have access to their personal pension, may have to wait a few years longer. For example if you are 48 now, you may expect that in 7 years time you can access your personal pension funds, whereas, because your State Pension age will be 67, it is quite feasible that you may not be able to access your personal pension until age 57.

There has been talk, as mentioned, that the difference between the private pension retirement age and State Pension Age will be reduced to 5 years in future, this means that people will have to wait even longer to be able to access their pension pots and for a lot of people this could be as late as age 65 if the State Pension Age is increased to 70 in the future as expected.

So at the moment it is a little bit up in the air, but it might be worth having contingency plans in place just in case you can’t get access to your personal pension as soon as you might think.

 

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What is the Retirement Age for Personal Pensions?

When you set up your personal pension then you would have chosen a retirement age for yourself which quite possibly would have been 60 or 65. However, that is not to say that you can’t take your personal pension benefits earlier than this. The minimum age for withdrawing benefits from a personal pension is 55 (it used to be 50 but this has now increased so you can’t take them any earlier than 55).

If you do wish to take your personal pension benefits early then you need to check with your pension provider that there are not any penalties for withdrawing the benefits early. Often there are not but it is definitely worth checking. Also if you are thinking about taking benefits early then it is worth looking into it a few years beforehand to check where your funds are invested and whether you should be switching investments to something more short term if you originally invested on a long term basis. Obviously you should consult with a financial adviser about this kind of thing. For example if all of your funds are invested in shares and there is a sudden drop in the market just before you want to retire then you may lose some money. It is possible to invest in safer funds a few years before so that this doesn’t happen to you.

If anyone tells you that you can take your pension before age 55 then you should definitely take advice on this from elsewhere as, if you do this, you may be subject to a big tax charge for illegally withdrawing your benefits early. It may be possible to take them in exceptional circumstances (for example extreme ill health) but in normal circumstances you can only take the funds after you reach age 55.

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