TUC targets 'work-til-you drop' plan

Unions are calling for a push to increase employment levels as a way of avoiding raising the state pension age.

 

The TUC's intervention comes as the government prepares for the findings of an independent review of pensions, which are expected in the autumn.

 

General secretary Brendan Barber said that if eight out of 10 people of working age had jobs enough revenue would be raised to maintain retirement at 65.

 

That would require a rise in employment levels of nine per cent, up from the current level of 71 per cent.

 

Barber has warned that if the state pension age were to rise, then poor people would lose out as they have a lower life expectancy.

 

He said: "There is an alternative to a 'work-till-you-drop' rise in the pension age... help those below the pension age get a job... so that there are more people in work under 65 paying taxes and creating wealth."

 

In the south of England the percentage of people in paid work is close to 80 per cent, but the rest of the country is short of that level.

 

Barber called on the government to help people over the age of 50 and those with disabilities back into the workforce in order to achieve the 80 per cent target.

 

It is a stated aim of work and pensions secretary David Blunkett to reform disability benefit and encourage as many claimants as possible into work.

 

Raising the state pension age was one of the possible solutions to the UK pensions crisis put forward by Adair Turner, the government's pensions commissioner.

 

The commission estimated that more than 12 million people are not saving enough for their retirement.