Who’s going to pay our pensions in 20-30years if the UK keeps its birth rate low and also restricts immigration?

Expensive in terms of disability benefits and other welfare payments

Not deport ones already here, but certainly put a cap on any further immigrants entering the UK. Or allow only those who have skills that add value to our country, like doctors, teachers. We don’t need/want any unskilled workers. We have enough already without importing more.

The groups I am describing are not paying taxes because they are are either not working (too old, no English, cultural objections to work outside the home) or are on minimum wages (car wash, deliveroo etc). They are taking money not contributing. They use the NHS as they are resident here but it is the tax payer who is paying for that. Society can only afford to contribute a limited number of such people before the whole edifice collapses.

I did not mention deporting settled non contributors. Not sure where you get that from.

I would however deport anyone convicted of a serious crime where possible.

Agreed. I would actually love to work in care if it was a decently paid and respected vocation.

This be the plan...

Yes yes yes!!!
Terraced properties and flats
all near public transport and work
Less cars = less land for cars
More land for agriculture

Can’t stand all these detached off street parking new properties on swirly roads. They cost too much, waste land, materials and are too much to run.

recently looked at a proposed housing project near me and we could fit in a further 23% more homes ( that’s 52 properties) Thus more dense design of ours would have saved other smaller developments or at the least left more grade 1 agricultural land to be just that.

In terms of job vacancies. First and foremost U.K. nationals should have to take jobs available. We should not have people capable of work, not working and then be forced to look abroad.
That’s ridiculous……and that includes fruit picking ( remember covid )

We should be paying care workers a lot more but people don't want to pay for their care and want inheritance to go to their dc. It's all a mess.

The problem with working in care homes is that nearly all the jobs are NMW and attract uneducated/unskilled applicants. A lot of whom are not suitable for the job. I think people working in care homes should get proper training, and have a good level of education. Afterall, we are entrusting vulnerable people to the care system, and need to be confident that the care they’re receiving is good quality care. Salaries for the job should then raise significantly, which will the attract more people. Giving the jobs to immigrants with no skills or in a lot of cases no command of the English language should not be happening.

AI confuses me, who will provide it for free? And where does the money come from to pay people when AI is doing the jobs?

Errr….. that’s a nice dream. So we have a lot of people on benefits as there are no jobs for them. What are they supposed to do with their lives? How will Ai fund growth and wealth? Where is the money coming from?

and that's another reason for fewer dc

I am banking on AI boosting massively increasing productivity and wealth. The government will be able to redistribute wealth through the tax/benefit system and we will all be fine!

Maybe the answer is we all need to learn to live in much smaller homes.

Haven't houses got smaller and are small compared to Europe?

Maybe the answer is we all need to learn to live in much smaller homes.

Our homes are already smaller than in most developed countries. (And older and worse quality (damp etc)). They cost a lot of money but you don't get much for it, already. I don't think making it worse is the answer!

How much more can you raise the pension age? People over 50 are already slower at learning new information, and after 60, some begin developing dementia and experiencing physical deterioration as well. Who would want to employ all these liabilities?

Lots of selfish ‘I’m all right Jack’ attitudes to this post.
Who wants to see a bricklayer still working at 70?
There are many things that need to be sorted, people aren’t having children because they can’t afford to buy property and have some security - sky high rent ( more than a mortgage would cost) is prohibitive.

That’s all fine, but if all these older people are working til 70 plus… where do the young people get jobs? Surely we’d just end up with a lot of youth unemployment?

@dizzydizzydizzy except that people love having loads of stuff and aren't used to putting up with other people any more so they all want to live in huge houses on their own.

Many low skilled jobs could be automated or dispensed with altogether. We do not need thousands of fast food delivery cyclists. We can go and pick up our pizzas ourselves. We do not need people working 20 hours a week at the supermarket and claiming UC and housing benefit to top up their wages. Machines can do many of these jobs. But for some business owners it is cheaper to employ people than to invest in automation because it is the taxpayer who is subsidising.

Where the role is needed (eg care jobs) but low paid we can subsidise - although we might find that if that subsidy was added to the wage, existing residents would do those jobs.

A significant proportion of people currently immigrating to UK have no qualifications and in many cases no hope of acquiring any. They bring with them, or are followed by, family members who do not work but use up NHS resources. Their children are usually low achievers within the school system because they start school with no/poor English and never catch up. These children also become net recipients. Many form parallel communities - poor or no English - and then return “home” to find a marriage partner and the cycle repeats itself.

They are dding to the problem not alleviating it.

I think this is right - the birth rate across the developed world is plummeting, it’s not just the UK.

Which tends to suggest it isn’t, for example, just down to the cost of childcare (although that definitely doesn’t help), because even countries with heavily subsidised childcare are seeing their fertility rates fall.

Yeah I can't get too excited about pensions being included in my estate for IHT purposes - it always seemed a bit of an anomaly that they weren't tbh. I'm fortunate enough to have built up a very healthy pension pot but the only vague planning I'm doing is around how to blow the lot before I die. If you're worrying about IHT your kids are already doing way betted than most.

It's not so much the overall number of people when it comes to paying for pensions but the age profile. As you can see from the image (which I took from here: commonslibrary.parliament.uk/the-uks-changing-population/) the proportion of retired people is increasing massively.

We have a conundrum. We need immigrants to come and work in our care homes and hospitals and pay our pensions, oh and pick our fruit, but we don't have endless space. Maybe the answer is we all need to learn to live in much smaller homes.

Endless immigration especially unskilled or when they may need social housing and top up benefits

Who is arguing for endless unskilled immigration?