What do you think will happen to the state pension in the future?

Have a read through Chapter 2. It does provide some useful high level context.

https://obr.uk/docs/dlm_uploads/Fiscal-risks-and-sustainability-report-July-2025.pdf

@taxguru You again. No comment.

Given that 100k pensioners died during Covid, quite possibly.

Good stuff.

Yes, my wording was inaccurate, I stand corrected there but I have always understood how it works. I was talking a bit more loosely about the basic principle, ie everyone pays in so everyone can take out. I’ve never been under the perception it’s a pension pot.

Do you think the numbers have improved after COVID 19, the Ukraine War and Brexit?

This article does not include a time series. The ONS is working on a revised time series for 2010 to 2015 and new estimates for 2016 and 2017, which will be published in two articles planned for spring 2021 on government-managed and non-government-managed pensions respectively.

Not particularly up to date, is it?

All sources say the same thing!

The latest official figs are from the ONS and date back to 2018. https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/nationalaccounts/uksectoraccounts/articles/pensionsinthenationalaccountsafullerpictureoftheuksfundedandunfundedpensionobligations/2018

In 2018, pension liabilities of central and local government comprised:

• £4.8 trillion of state pension entitlements (224% of 2018 gross domestic product (GDP))

• unfunded defined benefit workplace pension entitlements for public sector employees estimated at £1.2 trillion (55% of GDP)

• funded defined benefit workplace pension entitlements for public sector employees worth £413 billion (19% of GDP)

Ditto the Taxpayers’ Alliance. Try and find some unbiased sources.

Fair challenge- the data was quite old so found some a bit more recent.

🙄

The crap NHS will be killing off lots of OAPs anyway, so that will reduce the state benefit burdens!

£5 trillion is a lot, but it doesn't all have to be paid in one go.

I am not denying the pension issue is enormous and needs to be tacked, but im guessing only a certain %of that 5trn needs paying each year. So its a bit more in line with gdp.

I can’t find the latest figs but from 2021:

State pensions
£6,146.6 bn
Public sector pensions
£2,896.5 bn

https://www.taxpayersalliance.com/real_national_debt_hits_180_534_per_person

I think we can take the “research” of the Intergenerational Foundation with a pinch of salt given its raison d’etre.

Wrong link!

No, you do not understand.

your NI contribution pays for current pensioners.

younger worker’s NI will pay your pension. (the promise).

there is no state pension pot.

I think everyone understands that. But part of our taxes go towards our pensions, so you're quibbling over terminology here.

I agree, the whole thing has been a fiasco for decades. When the welfare state was first introduced, people paid a "stamp" for national insurance which gave them certain benefits such as unemployment, sickness, and yes, state pension, but it was a fixed weekly amount to buy a "stamp". That's when it genuinely was a kind of "insurance".

Over the decades it morphed into a tax as it became income/earnings related and more and more people became entitled to "credits" without paying anything, such as unemployment, caring responsibilities, part time work, etc etc. At the same time, the earnings related element was used by successive governments to raise general taxation for general country running costs, not for benefits!

Even worse were the 80s and 90s with SERPS and S2P which were "income related" enhancements to the state pension which gave the impression that you were paying in for higher benefit entitlements, which were subsequently scrapped!

The whole thing has been a fiasco for decades, over successive governments of different colours. They're all basically fudged the issue and just used NIC to raise taxes without any real thought nor planning to long term benefit costs.

Communism?

Unfortunately your National Insurance just doesn’t pay into any pension pot. The money helps pay current pensioners whilst your payments qualify you to receive the promise of the same from the next generation. However the demographics of fewer workers and more pensioners means this model is unsustainable. Australia realised the unsustainably a few years ago; and changed to a contribution model. We need to do this in the UK.

if we don't reform it to a European model, it will collapse and we'll end up with the US model

Not this tired old myth again. Even Jeremy Hunt has said that the funding model is the least of problems with the NHS and changing it wouldn’t improve anything. He added that the disruption in even attempting it would take years and cost so much in productivity and money that it would be an act of sabotage.

I understand and agree this is the reality and has always been a reality

But they need to not call it Insurance as its misleading.

They need to not have a system where I can log in and see a 'forecast' page.

And they need to not have a record my personal payments saying if I have gaps i can buy them back to secure the pension.

They need to not say i have to contribute for 3 more years to go from 213.91 a week to £230 a week pension.

No other tax is presented that way. I pay it. I know how much I paid as it says on my payslip. There's no income tax forecast saying i have 10 years in my judiciary category and need to build up more if I want the full judiciary experience.

The wording has changed over the years and is less and less like a pension scheme, but back in the late 1990s/ 2000 I used to get a postal statement of my pension described like i was building a personal pension.

I know its not true, but its not sensible to structure it the way it is and then complain people thought they had contributed and would get it.

What's your alternative to the ever increasing black economy, money laundering, drug dealing, organised crime, modern slavery, etc., that's ALL on the backs of false/fake identities.

You havn't paid "into" anything - you've paid your taxes as and when due (presumably). There's no "pot" like there is with a private pension where money in is linked to pot value and money out. NIC is just a tax, it's not an insurance policy and it's not your "personal pot".