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

Out of what, if they're left with nothing (or less than nothing) once the bills have been paid and food bought? Honestly you're coming across as criminally naive in some of these replies.

FFS. 🙄You got this far in the thread making reasoned comments (which isn't to say I agree with everything you've expressed, not by a long chalk, but at least it's been mostly constructive) and then you descend into Daily Mail commenter territory with this reply. I suspect that's because you know there isn't a good answer to my question.

For your so-called logic to work, the country would need better paid jobs, a lower cost of living, or both. There are a whole ton of people out there working hard and striving to 'do better for themselves', your reply seems to be insinuating they just aren't working hard enough/aren't ambitious enough which is deeply insulting to a lot of ordinary hard-working people. There simply aren't enough jobs that pay well enough, especially in this economy, for people to just decide to 'do better', and people's skills, aptitudes and strengths vary, not everyone has, or can acquire, a skillset that's suited to the so-called 'top jobs'. Many hard-working people are stuck languishing in low-paid work simply because so many jobs pay barely enough to live on, and if you're not aware of that you must live in an ivory tower.

BTW I'm not even going waste keystrokes on 'not the obese or the wimpy', but you need to be careful with terms like 'intellectually disabled'. Just saying.

I understand net contributor has its uses. I get that at any given point of time you can say this financial year person x used more or less services than they paid for in tax. I understand that we use services indirectly too.

But it is also very simplistic financial flow on one individual to tax isn't it. If I am doing childcare and am not a 'net contributor' but the people whose child i am looking after are, how does that work. I enabled their tax contribution. How much tax do you think you'd pay if you had no food as noone picked the vegetables that year. Would a lot of business owners be able to earn as much as they did, without a group of non net contributors working for them.

''@Tryingtokeepgoing · Yesterday 16:25
Someone on minimum wage is paying, what, £3k or so in NI and income tax a year, but I imagine is also a relatively heavy user of the roads (paid for on the whole by the taxpayer), public transport (subsidised), education and training, I suspect use proportionally more police resources as a cohort than 60 year olds, probably draw on Local Authority resources for housing at a similar level to the elderly, and use more local authority subsised sports facilities and parks. Can that all be covered by less than £3k... I'd guess not :)''

What is your point?

The economy and society could not function without people on low/minimum wage.

Or don't you realise with need carers, hospital porters, supermarket staff, cleaners, teaching assistant, nursery workers, delivery drivers, hospitality, agriculture and leisure workers...

Hasn't Covid bought you anything? when times got tough we did not need another hedge fund manager or another accountants, we relied on all the essential workers that kept us all going.

Their value goes beyond the amount of tax they pay.

Those people are unlikely to be working for Goldman Sachs, but they can still hold down a job that's valued by their community.

They do. They’re just not jobs that pay very well. You might have gone to the supermarket, I did too but the shelves didn’t stack themselves and the groceries were delivered to the shops by human beings. We all still had our bins emptied. Care home workers aren’t paid much but they’re valued.

The staff serving you will have been low paid. You relied on them for your groceries. They were essential.

And some of those vital jobs just don't pay much.

Nobody brought my shopping during Covid, ever. I went to Lidl every Tuesday pm myself, masked and bought a week's groceries. I emailed the butcher and picked up the order 24 hours later from the parking area.

And @Nosferatu, I don't buy your patronising spiel. Most people can make a decent go at a decent life; some need a bit of help to get there. Those people are unlikely to be working for Goldman Sachs, but they can still hold down a job that's valued by their community.

Not everybody can "do better for themselves". Not everyone is capable of doing a high paying job. Doesn't necessarily make then any less deserving of a decent retirement. And remember somebody has to do the low paying jobs.

The people in the lowest paid jobs are the ones who brought your shopping to you during Covid... the ones who were with your elderly relatives when you were not allowed to be. The ones who emptied your bins full of empty hand sanitiser bottles, wet wipes, and masks.

We NEED people in the low paid jobs for the world to function.

Of course they do, if they save for it.

Oh come on. As we discovered during Covid the people most essential to keep the wheels turning are the lowest paid. How short memories are.

Frankly, they need to understand that they are on thin ice and do better for themselves. I explicitly EXCLUDE the intellectually and physically disabled, but not the obese or the wimpy.

Exactly that. The biggest cost to local authorities is social care, not something healthy 18 year old have much call for.

Roads and buses are hardly the costly bits of LA budgets. The cost is social care, whether elder care or juvenile. Roughly £50K per capita young or old it ploughs through the money raised from council tax-payers faster than most people can earn. I am decently successful and still a net tax-payer in retirement, but the bit above what I cost and pay in income tax doesn't touch the sides of an expensive EHplan, and there are thousands in every local authority.

What about people who don't earn very much? Don't they deserve a decent retirement too?

Obviously if they’re on minimum wage they won’t be in receipt of education because they’re working. Why would they be any heavier users of the roads and public transport than any other age group? Housing? Don’t make me laugh. Where I live subsidised leisure facilities are long gone. You might have a point when it comes to crime although those who commit crimes are hugely outnumbered by those who don’t. So basically roads and buses.

It's not a future I want to live, hence I started planning what I DID want 35 or 40 years ago. There is no quick fix; everyone earns the retirement they deserve and the sooner governments hoist that in, the better.

Life expectancy will start to reduce soon, the people living into their 90s now are tough people who lived much more active lifestyles.

state pension will probably be replaced with the LISA

100% this. Essentially Pension Credits.

Without the Universal Credit, the minimum wage would be lower. Labour costs would find an equilibrium. No employer who wants to make a profit at the end of the year is going to pay more than the work earns. So if my DH is not making a little margin on every hour on every person he employs, to cover the office and rent costs etc, plus a bit for him, who found and sold the work and who will take the risk of the whole shooting match going wrong as a personal debt. All the risk ends up at DH's door. There is a cost of being in business, and I don't see any understanding of the risk he takes daily. It's not insured when he says I will do that job for £x00.

Quite seriously, if you have never worked for yourself, without an employer and a guaranteed pay cheque each month, then you really do not have a clue about what the word precarious means.

This particular government is not the worst I've experienced, but they really seriously do not understand the reality of life for the small businesses that employ about 80% of the population.

Unless the micro and small businesses are doing okay, and getting by, then there's half of fuck all to redistribute. Sorry to piss on any parades.

They wont be a net contributor. But plenty of older people are not either. You need to be on over £41k to be one. A lot of the most vital jobs pay way less than that.

It is a moot point really. Pretty much blaming people for not earning enough.

But they probably spend on clothes, going out etc adding VAT into the pot

tax isn’t just income tax

Someone on minimum wage is paying, what, £3k or so in NI and income tax a year, but I imagine is also a relatively heavy user of the roads (paid for on the whole by the taxpayer), public transport (subsidised), education and training, I suspect use proportionally more police resources as a cohort than 60 year olds, probably draw on Local Authority resources for housing at a similar level to the elderly, and use more local authority subsised sports facilities and parks. Can that all be covered by less than £3k... I'd guess not :)

When I started you could go at 60, then 65 and now for me it’s 68. My mother went at 50 (same job high stress) and I’m going part time at 52 and I will have retired by 55. No 68 year old could do my current job - I’m exhausted on a daily basis - just no.

I can not see the new people coming in as having the same pension - currently they are paying in the same and will get about 1/2 the value of mine.