State Pension

I don't care how rich anybody is. If they have paid 35 years' of NI they have purchased a full state pension. That is the deal.

If changes have to be made for those currently working, then the years of NI they have paid up to the change get them that proportion of the full state pension. Their working years after that will be on the new deal.

When my friends and I were in our 30s/40s we always used to say that there would not be a state pension when we reached that age. But here we all are, getting a pension (even if some of us have had to wait more than five years than expected).

That would just bring more people below the threshold for pension credit, unless you're proposing reducing that too.

The basic state pension is only a few pounds over pension credit now.

Has anyone mentioned AI yet?

Lots of these "cushy" office jobs for those of us who are late 50s will be long gone by the time those now in their 30s/40s reach 60.

With interest.

If anybody has their state pension removed, they should get a full refund of all of their NI contributions then.

Even now, the state pension is of use only as a top up amount. We all need to take out a proper private pension to cover our retirement.

Anyone lucky enough to be on a gold plated final salary pension ought not to qualify for the state pension right now, let alone in the future. My mate's mother, a widow, is creaming £3000k a month from the husband's private pension. What the hell does an old lady in her late 80s need the state pension for when she's accessing that kind of money? We need to start means testing a lot more than we do.

That still happens now

Another pensions one? Ok I will say it again. There is no state pension pot. Pensioners are paid via the contributions being made by working people.

So as age expectancy has increased from 64.5 in 1948 to 78 in 2023, the state pension age should have crept up sooner than it has. Although 48 would have allowed for a higher infant mortality rate and the effect of two wars.

There will be a state pension when you get there op. Why? Because removing the pension makes a political party unelectable possibly ever again.

The value will stay about the same in real terms due to the triple lock, which again, no politician wants to be the one to get shot of.

There's no need to tell me to fuck off.

I clarified that Not All Boomers in a later post.

That post was in response to a particular poster.

To be fair employee contributions (such that you paid) are a tiny part of paying for final salary pensions. Many government schemes are not funded- there is no pot and taxpayers are paying for the benefits now

DFO.

Im a very late Boomer. Borderline Gen x. I have adult DC. I know very well how hard it is now. I’ve supported them through uni, helped towards house deposits, bailed them out so many times. Young people are shafted these days.

They key thing is apart from 14 years of my adult life, there’s been a Tory government. I didn’t vote them in. That’s your problem.

My mum gets £30 a month pension from my dad (he's died). This stops her from getting the higher rate SP even though she has full stamps. Is this right! She has now remarried 18 years ago.

Sorry to but in OP.

It’s an incredibly complicated debate isn’t it.

Modern medicine can keep people alive for a very long time - often not in good health, and for a lot of that period not in good enough health to work enough to sustain themselves.

But the side effect of these advances are that people might have as long retired as they did working. It’s not sustainable.

I worry about this too - but I think they would need to give everyone literally decades of notice so people could start (trying to!) save the shortfall.

So many of my friends aren’t paying into a private pension because they can’t afford to so I just don’t know what would happen to them in that scenario. Do they just have to keep working ? And how would that work if you had a manual job? Or can’t keep up with all the changing technology? It’s a scary thought

Did you mean 'based on what'?

If so you're right that's unfair. A lot of boomers do completely understand the challenge facing the current/future gens. Most generations have strived to leave a better standard of living for their children/grandchildrens generation but that's in decline for Gen X onwards. And lots of boomers really care. But far from all.

Having worked in pensions all my working life, this is how I see it.

When originally set up, the State pension was intended to be paid for approx 15 years BUT as life expectancy increased no government could be bothered to raise the State pension age.

This, plus the aging population, means that the country can frankly no longer afford it in its present form BUT no party has ever had the courage to tell the public that the State pension age - for men and women - should be 71 or even 72, if the pension is to be affordable to the country.

Remember there is no "State Pension Fund" as such. The taxes collected by HMRC this week are used straightaway to pay this week's State pensions.

Politically, it is impossible to actually abolish the State pension IMO, but sheer economic necessity means that sooner or later: (i) the amount will have to be cut back or frozen OR (ii) there will have to be a massive hike in State pension age OR (iii) both of the above.

I don't think many boomers understand how disastrous this last 12 years have been for younger generations

Used on what?

You really need to understand a lot more about the reality for current working age parents.

Free childcare hours doesn't really mean free childcare. The government funded part is such a pittance childcare providers go bust or have to increase fees elsewhere to cover the shortfall. Fees per child are easily in excess of £1k per month.

Mortgage rates may recently have been lower but the proportional cost of houses to wages has massively inflated over the past 20-30 years. Adding in mortgage rates rises in becomes disastrous.

University education is now out of reach for those without the ability to take on huge debts. No more living grants for lower income families.

New barristers barely make minimum wage.

Junior doctors have seen huge wage deflation, and coupled with high debt many are moving abroad.

I don't think many boomers understand how disastrous this last 12 years have been for younger generations.

I agree with this, and part of me thinks I may as well stop or reduce my voluntary private pension contributions and put that into savings instead because I will once again fall into a gap, earning too much to qualify for a state pension but earning too little for a decent private pension. At least that way the state will have to take care of me for once.

I hope at least if the SP is means tested, it's only the very well off and the rich who miss out, not those getting a small private pension.

Yes agreed. Have just been a bit shocked at a few I've come across recently getting £300 + a week. Not sure how common it is for people to get that amount ? I think there's this line of thinking that all pensioners are on a pittance of state pension but there's a lot that aren't.
As others have said I think it's the ones who get a very small private pension that rules them out of any other help that come off worst and people will think what is the point.
I also think that rather than attacking state pension they could look at means testing universal benefits like the winter fuel payment, which could save quite a bit.

’Fewer jobs needed degrees’

I was constantly told l was over qualified with a degree in the 80’s. It was really hard to find jobs as no one wanted to pay graduate salaries. A degree was looked down on. So yeah, fewer jobs needed degrees.

Bur having a degree made it harder to find a job.

@Babyroobs those people on high SERPS pensions did actually pay much more into the system in fairness. I'm massively pissed off as didn't opt out of SERPS either reducing my NI contribution or having that money diverted into another scheme but all I will get back from it is to reduce the need for 35 years for a full pension. I only need 30 years total (or possibly less) as a result of how they calculated those who had made SERPS contributions but won't get them. When they changed the system those with SERPS contributions should have been given the opportunity to move that money into another scheme and kept everyone on 35 years contribution for a full record.

When state pensions were introduced, the pension age was about 3 years less than average life expectancy.

We cannot afford for people to work for c40 years then be funded by the state to continue to live comfortably without working for another 40 years. However life expectancy is hugely variable by region and socioeconomic group. I think we will move to an employment and retirement model that is more flexible rather than a set cutoff age - employers will need to be obliged and required to create relatively "light" roles that people who spent their 20s-50s in physically demanding roles can step into in their 60s/70s/80s and can continue to be economically productive while they have capacity. Rather than a blanket retirement age there will be a physical and mental health checklist carried out every 3 years and when your capacity is such that you can no longer perform any kind of productive work you get signed off to retire with an expectation that you won't last more than a few years. Perhaps also an official "semi retirement" where if medical advice is to lower your working hours you can draw 50% of the state pension and work 16-20 hours per week.

I don't think those under 40 today will experience what my parents are enjoying - now in their 15th year of healthy and active retirement where they definitely had the capacity to continue earning during that time.

I don't exactly relish this prospect but it's not viable for the economy to support such high numbers being economically inactive.

The biggest issue with such a scheme would be that it could only apply to the poor - as wealthier people have private pensions and decades to build up other income-generating non-pension investments, which may be much larger than the state pension. These oncome streams would still.allow the wealthier to retire from age 60 or even 55. You could theoretically balance this by having an additional extra income tax on any pension or unearned income drawn before the individual qualifies for a state pension but I think that would be unenforceable. Something would be needed to enforce the same concepts for the higher socioeconomic groups though - that ongoing income being received for decades is still ultimately being generated by an overburdened shrinking population of economically active adults and there are fundamentally going to be limits on how much wealth they can generate to service the obligations of the incomes that the private pension providers are committed to.