Simon Jenkins is right to point out the growing feasibility of older people choosing to work into their 80s (Mary Berry, and now Prue Leith. Retiring in your 80s is the new 60s, 23 January). As he says, older people are far healthier than they used to be and continuing to be economically active is generally good for one’s health.
But I feel that he, and successive governments, have missed a trick. He states that “the idea of Britons becoming useless at 60 was increasingly unreal”, yet as soon as retirement age is reached, one ceases to pay national insurance (NI). I was astonished when I no longer paid NI after the then retirement age – yet I would not have missed it in my extra two years of teaching. It would have simply been a continuation of what I’d already been paying.
With work and pensions records online, why is it not possible for older people to continue to pay NI, adding to their pension pot and contributing to the public purse at the same time, pro rata their working hours and salary? Change the rule to: if you are working, you pay national insurance, regardless of age.
Anne Ayres
Huthwaite, Nottinghamshire
As Simon Jenkins writes, there are indeed “unquantifiable virtues that come with age”. But as a mentally and physically active man in his 70s, I can’t help noticing that ageism remains widespread in business, government, news media, comedy and everywhere else – explicitly or implicitly.
Contrary to the insulting common view, we are not sitting in slippers and cardigans, listening to Vera Lynn on our gramophones and bemoaning the “good old days”. Many of us are still active and still trying to make the world a better place – our “unquantifiable virtues” remaining intact, perhaps even enhanced over the years.
Brian Cookson
Chair, Active Lancashire
Scenario: travelling by train through gloomy London. Gloomy news. Turn to the Journal pages in the Guardian print edition and Simon Jenkins’ article. Sunshine’s breaking through!
Elizabeth Belcher (aged 79 and 50 weeks)
Sandy, Bedfordshire