A petition to bring the state pension back down to 60 in England has been rejected by the Department for Work and Pensions.
The government today said lowering the age of entitlement would be "neither affordable nor fair".
Almost 70,000 people had signed a Commons petition calling for the minimum age to be reduced to 60.
The age threshold was increased to 66 for everyone last year with further phased increases to age 68 planned.
Until 2010, the state pension age was 60 for women and 65 for men, but under the new state pension in 2018, the date on you retire now depends on the date you were born.
In 2020, a further change to the rules required men and women born between 6 October, 1954, and 5 April, 1960, to have to wait until their 66th birthday to receive their pension.
Campaigners say the balance needs to brought "back in to young people's favour" to help "restore their future" while older people should be allowed to retire earlier, to free up employment.
While there would be a financial cost to the Treasury, they say paying pension benefits earlier would be "more positive" than having to top young people up with Universal Credit.
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The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) argues lowering the state pension age to 60 would place an unaffordable and unfair burden on taxpayers and make the benefit unsustainable in the long term.
The number of people over state pension age compared to the working population is expected to increase because, on average, people life expectancy is rising, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Had the state pension age not risen for men and women, "the total additional cost to taxpayers would have been around £215bn for the period 2010/11 to 2025/26, in 2018/19 prices," the DWP said.
It added that ministers have provided "an unprecedented amount of support via our plan for jobs to help those of all ages find work and get the skills they need to return to work".
