This is the 15th September I’ve been writing my blog and my last that I will credit myself a legitimate worker. I will be 65 in a couple of years which was when people used to be retired , get a carriage clock and a shake of hands from the boss and the prospect of a wage for life for doing nothing.
But it didn’t work out , how I was taught as a schoolkid or student. We are living longer so we have to work longer but work has become less onerous. My computer lets me start early, work later and fill the middle of my day with exercise or debauchery (depending on your preference). I am amazed how many people read my posts before 6 am. Yesterday, a bank holiday, I had a meeting with someone for whom it was 5 am when we spoke. We congratulated each other, he me for working on banking on a bank holiday, him for working at what used to be an ungodly hour (God worked 9-5 when I started).
Today, my area’s weather forecast is 0% rain and a reasonable temperature. Sun in the morning , cloud in the afternoon, autumn is like summer. Summer was like being in Spain when I was growing up. The weather wasn’t very workable and we started taking siestas in my house with a return to work later in the day.
Early in the summer we put artificial rain through a hose onto our miniscule lawn but then the drought was declared. The grass turned brown, the river Thames virtually stopped and what we had was held in by a weir which held water back so boats could have draft.
Today is the first day of autumn , the first day of work and a return to some kind or normality after 6 weeks of children’s and their parent’s holidays.
For me August was the first month that we can get our CDC authorised , a month that started with the hangover of Nick Cave playing madly on the Pension Regulator’s doorstep.
Nothing much has changed. The DWP has got a new Director of Private Pensions who issued a remarkable statement which made my holiday.
What of September?
Keats got the tone right, writing at the end of his short life.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir, the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
For many of us, autumn presages the end of their year ; I’m sure there are many who would like my days challenging the institution to be in an autumn too. But I am stronger and more determined than for many years as my vision for pensions comes alive
This autumn it will be two years since I nearly lost my life and two years since I made a lucky recovery. I “have my music too” and this blog has become a place where people my age and older who are still working can vocalise their memories and make predictions based on experience.
The maturity of autumn is upon us, as Keats explained in one amazing sentence
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimmed their clammy cell.
I wonder sometimes about that arbitrary “65”. The IMF, where I worked until 2021, has a hard cut-off at 65 so I was forced to “retire” when I felt that I was at my peak in terms of work-related production. So here I am at 69, still going strong, blogging and doing contract work for the IMF and various firms active in the digital money space (my new bailiwick). If the original “65” was based on some sort of actuarial calculations, surely the new “65” should be something like 70 or higher!?
Take it from a corporate benefits professional with 47 years of experience – 65 ain’t what it used to be … except perhaps in the minds of some Human Resources “professionals”.
65 is clearly arbitrary, when it comes to work and career, and Medicare. However, it is what it is.
Best example of “arbitrary” retirement at age 65 prompted by rules and statutes is Ida Mae Fuller, who retired January 1st, 1940 at the age of 65 – our first social security recipient. Under Social Security provisions as originally approved, Ida would have had to work 5 years or until having paid in FICA taxes on $2,000 of wages. Monthly benefits would not be provided to anyone retired prior to 1942 (1937, 1938, 1939, 1940, 1941 were the five years). The 1939 Amendments, changed the rules reducing the minimum to 6 quarters (1.5 years) of work and at least $300 in wages, while monthly benefit payments could now begin in January 1940. Ida Mae turned age 65 in 1939. She paid in $24.75 during those three years (1937, 1938, 1939) and retired 1/1/40 – receiving her first check January 31, 1940 in the amount of $22.54. She lived to 100, collecting $22,888.92, and qualifying for Medicare starting in 1966 having never paid FICA-Med.
Retirement, at least in America, is a relatively new phenomenon. In the not so distant past, work was much more blue collar, physical. People would work until they were physically spent, whenever that occurred, retire to a mostly sedentary life, and die soon thereafter.
For many, work ended before age 65. For example, my father, an actively employed firefighter, died at 53. My mom, suffered a debilitating heart attack at age 64.
Retirement for my mom, it was an 11 year period with health struggles – she passed at age 76.
Today, in American anyway, the Social Security Full Retirement Age has been gradually increased to 67 for those born on or after 1/1/60. However, Medicare “old age” eligibility is still 65.
In America, with only a handful of exceptions (pilots, executives), the ability of an organization to mandate retirement at age 65 ended with amendments to the Age Discrimination in Employment Act – in 1978 (age 65 to age 70) and 1986 (eliminated age 70, no limit).
Unfortunately, we’ve taught too many that a retirement without work should start as soon as possible, once financially independent (FIRE), or at the “double nickel” (55), at age 62 (earliest SS commencement age), when Medicare is first available (65) and now, when you qualify for unreduced Social Security benefits (67).
What’s bad about that is we’ve changed expectations, not only for individuals themselves, but for employers as well.
As I write this, as an employed 74 year old corporate employee benefits “weenie”, here is my suggestion for you, others when it comes to planning for continued employment, retirement, etc.:
https://401kspecialistmag.com/maximize-outcomes-not-incomes-die-with-zero/
What a great punchline (“without good health, nothing else much matters”)! Maybe we should be basing retirement planning and timing on “healthspan” rather than “lifespan”!?
In the UK the age of 70 was first used from 1909. It was a means-tested, non-contributory state benefit meant for the poorest individuals of “good character”. Average life expectancy at the time was below 60.
The age of 65 was then chosen under the Widows’, Orphans’ and Old Age Contributory Pensions Act 1925, when 65 was close to or slightly above average life expectancy for men, meaning the state still did not expect to pay pensions for very many years.
From 1940, the women’s pension age was lowered to 60 so a wife could retire alongside her husband. Because husbands were typically about five years older than their wives, setting women’s age at 60 meant couples could in theory
collect their pensions together.
Nowadays, the government must run an independent State Pension Age Review at least once every five years. A core guiding principle is that an individual should ideally spend no more than one-third of their adult life in retirement.
Men and women’s state pension ages are now “equalised”. The average age difference between couples getting married, however, is now just two years, not the five years assumed in 1940.
The latest ONS figures for average UK life expectancy at age 65 is about 18.7 further years for men and 21.2 for women, neither of which exceeds that one-third of their adult life principle. This is the case whether you assume adult age begins at 18, or the Government Actuary’s Department which prefers to use age 20, and since state pension ages are already moving from age 66 to 67 anyway.
Average healthy life expectancy at birth, however, is only 60.7 years for men and 60.9 for women. Worse, it has actually fallen since 2019–21.
Men aged 65 are expected to
enjoy about 9.5 to 10.1 additional years in good health, while women are expected to enjoy about 10.4 to 11.2 additional years in good health.
Local health data shows large differences. People living in more deprived areas experience significantly lower healthy life expectancies compared to those in wealthier areas.
Males in the most deprived areas of England have an average life expectancy from birth 9.7 years shorter than those in the least deprived areas. For females, the gap is 7.9 years.
The healthy life expectancy gap is even more pronounced, with males in the most deprived areas of England having an average expectancy from birth of only 52.3 years compared to 70.9 years in the least deprived areas, a difference of 18.6 years. For females, the gap is 19.3 years, with those in the most deprived areas having 51.4 years compared to 70.7 years in the least deprived areas.
Yes, we are living longer, but we are not necessarily living healthy lives for proportionately longer.
Society should make it easier for healthy people to work longer if they wish, rather than making later retirement the assumed norm for everyone.
“… Society should make it easier for healthy people to work longer if they wish, rather than making later retirement the assumed norm for everyone. …”
Certainly agree! In the states, we actually have added barriers, in terms of employment and benefit laws, that impede continued employment after “traditional” retirement ages.
I wrote about this a few years ago, and offered minor adjustments that would, without adding to cost, prompt employers to give older workers a second look (Aiming at the Wrong Target: What’s Holding Employers Back When it Comes to Older Workers?)
The change would refocus employers away from what some called “phased retirement” (transitioning individuals from full time career employment over a period of years to full time leisure) to “flexible employment” – where employers compete to hire experienced, highly-skilled workers as a means of achieving a competitive financial advantage for their organization (while concurrently meeting the employment goals of the individual worker).
Happy to share if interested.
Please share a link to “Aiming at the Wrong Target: What’s Holding Employers Back When it Comes to Older Workers”!
henrytapper.com/2026/09/01/welcome-to-autumn-its-back-to-work-and-workable-weather/#comment-165783
ageing-better.org.uk/age-friendly-employer-action-framework
Thanks for the post.
I assert that “employers being friendly” is ineffective, at least in the states, at overcoming structural barriers to employing and retaining older, skilled, talented workers.
50+ years of legislation, regulation, and litigation add specific considerations which dissuade employers from aggressively pursuing talent without regard to the age of the candidate – where, for example, recruiting talent away from competitors (without regard to age) is seldom a strategy for creating a competitive advantage.
We have comparable initiatives in the states, and yet, polling of older American workers consistently confirms that they believe age discrimination is widespread.
“… “There’s a need to create a culture that works for all employees at all ages,” … “Embracing a multigenerational workforce has positives for your bottom line, your creativity and your innovation.”
https://www.aarp.org/work/age-discrimination/age-bias-survey-2026/
Compared to this sampling … there are many more:
https://www.transamericainstitute.org/initiatives/age-inclusive-management-strategies/aims-colorado
https://workforce.iowa.gov/jobs/worker-programs/scsep/about-senior-community-service-employment-program-scsep
https://changingthenarrativeco.org/age-friendly-workplace-initiative/
Connect with me on Linkedin (jack towarnicky) if you would like a copy of the article, or the slide deck from st. louis for your personal use.
http://www.stlcebs.org/event-details/aiming-at-the-wrong-target-whats-holding-employers-back-when-it-comes-to-older-workers-1