‘Work ‘til you drop’: Meet the pensioners forced out of retirement in their seventies and eighties

During a long career in the exhibition and conference industry, Joan Preston never imagined she would still be in employment at the age of 79. Her husband, Leon, 81, is an even less likely candidate after undergoing open-heart surgery.

Thanks to rocketing inflation, however, the couple both go out to work to top up their state pensions, because they have already cut out all luxuries and say there are no more savings they can make.

Mrs Preston had intended to retire at the end of last year, but changed her mind after being furloughed during Covid and watching the bills creep up. Now she works up to four days a week to top up her £89-a-week state pension.

“I didn’t retire because of the money. I was better off this time last year when I was furloughed. It’s a struggle now,” she says.

Have you been forced to come out of retirement? If so email jane.dalton@independent.co.uk

Mr Preston works one or two shifts a week at a cinema, earning the minimum wage to top up his £140-a-week state pension.

The couple cannot claim pension credit because they have too much money coming in, according to Mrs Preston – but they have already cut out luxuries, she says.

“I wouldn’t like to say how badly off we’d be if we didn’t have that money coming in. We’d definitely be hard up. No way could we make more savings.”

The effect of inflation is noticeable. Mrs Preston says they consider themselves lucky if they spend less than £100 on the weekly grocery shop, which is often £130 now, compared with £50 or £65 two years ago.

“It’s ridiculous,” she says. “I used to always have at least £1,000 in my bank account, but now I have less than £300.”

Without their wages, they would have to watch how much they eat, she says.

“I now have no alternative but to carry on working and be one of Tony Blair’s statistics: ‘work till you drop’,” says Mrs Preston. Under Mr Blair, Labour phased out compulsory retirement at 65.

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It’s something many older people are now grateful for, as they postpone their retirement or seek to return to work to make ends meet because they are finding their pensions simply will not stretch to cover spiralling household bills.

In what’s been dubbed the “great unretirement”, a record 173,000 more people aged 65 and over went back to work in the three months to June, compared with the previous quarter, according to official figures.

Data from the Office for National Statistics show employment rates among the over-65s rising from 5.3 per cent 20 years ago to 11.9 per cent in May this year.

More than 700,000 retired people could be forced to resume working because they cannot survive on their pensions, according to the latest research by the My Pension Expert consultancy.

Older people are being encouraged, scared or forced back into work by exponential rises in living costs. The energy price cap rose by 80 per cent in October, and the price of food is rising at its fastest rate since 2008.

The rate of UK inflation hit 10.1 per cent last month, the highest level in 40 years. The rise was largely down to food prices and staples.

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The Resolution Foundation has warned that Britain faces an “unprecedented two-decade-long wage depression”.

US investment bank Goldman Sachs has even predicted that UK inflation could hit 22 per cent next year if soaring gas prices fail to come down.

Alan Davison, a full-time home-care worker in Northumberland, is having to scrap his hoped-for retirement in February because of the inflation crisis.

He has worked out that, under the new energy price cap, his monthly direct debit will rise to nearly five times as much as it is now – from £70 to £345. With other household bills, his pension will be swallowed up, with little or nothing remaining, he says.

“I always thought I’d retire at 65. I started work at 15, so I don’t relish the idea of having to work after retirement, even part-time.

“In this day and age it should not be a necessity to work past retirement just to pay the bills.

“I’m gradually reducing my hours from 45-plus to 38 and was hoping to retire in February,” he says. “However, with inflation and the cost of living rising, my state pension will not cover everything.

“I have a small private pension that I was hoping to leave for my family after I was gone – if I use that I will have nothing except my house.”

Mr Davison’s wife, 62, also works but they fear her employer, a high-end furniture firm, might not survive the energy crisis.

And he might have to move his 86-year-old mother in with him because her £127 weekly pension is not enough to cover her bills.

At 78, Tony Moore, a retired HGV driver, is looking for two shifts a week, possibly in a warehouse or as a forklift-truck driver, so that he can afford petrol for his volunteer role befriending armed forces veterans.

Filling up his tank to make the visits costs him around £100 every fortnight, which he pays for from his savings.

He’s been forced to reduce his volunteering from two or three days a week to just two or three hours.

And he says that, if he doesn’t find work soon, he might be forced to give up altogether.

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“I visit one guy in his eighties, a navy veteran whose problem is loneliness. He’s recently lost his wife – and a visit makes his day,” says Mr Moore.

“I try to walk everywhere for myself, but if I take someone shopping sometimes I need to get a wheelchair or Zimmer frame in my car.

“My son says Age UK should be looking after me, not the other way around. But it’s a privilege to do it.”

Many of those returning to the jobs market are those who finished work earlier than planned during the pandemic, either because they saw the chance of a better lifestyle or through circumstances, experts say.

Stuart Lewis, chief executive of Rest Less, a website for the over-50s, says: “In some ways the pandemic forced the hands of many and gave them an opportunity to trial retirement.

“One member in his sixties decided to retire when the care home he was working in closed during the pandemic. Two years later, he is missing the social interaction that comes with work and is back on the hunt for a job.”

Rest Less, which analysed government statistics, has found the number of over-50s in work or looking for work is at its highest level since early 2020.

Kim Chaplain of the Centre for Ageing Better, which challenges age discrimination, says older workers want more flexibility to work non-standard hours, to be able to work from home or use hybrid working, and many are prepared to trade income for flexibility.

Meanwhile, Mr Davison fears for the vulnerable people he cares for. “I have had people tell me this week that, when energy prices rise, they’re not using their heating systems because they can’t afford to do so,” he says.

“Let’s hope the government freezes the price cap, doubles the pension and sorts out social care in the next six months, or people will die unnecessarily.”

A government spokesperson says: “We recognise the pressures pensioners are facing and all pensioner households will receive £300 to help them cover the rising cost of energy this winter, with those on pension credit getting a further £650 cost of living payment.

“This is in addition to the winter fuel payment, £400 discount on their energy bills and our new energy price guarantee, saving households an average of £1,000 a year.

“This year we will spend over £110bn on the state pension and the full yearly amount of the basic state pension is now over £2,300 higher than in 2010, with 400,000 fewer pensioners in absolute poverty after housing costs in 2020-21 than in 2009-10.”