Pension credit only £3 less than State Pension

Indeed. I started a private pension in 1992 aged 20 when I worked in a small company. Moved to a larger company and joined their scheme in 1996. Might not have been every employer but plenty of companies offered a pension scheme in the 80s & 90s. My grandad retired at 65 in 1977 & also had a small occupational pension.

No, it isn't the fault of today's pensioners that successive governments have failed to act, but the current situation is unsustainable and today's pensioners need to accept that. Apparently the government is commiting to the triple lock for the duration of this parliament. I think that's a mistake.

It is true that demographics have changed, but successive governments have had access to figures that should have made it clear that changes had to be made ages ago. It is not the fault of today's pensioners that they ignored them.

Pension arrangements have also changed, as have laws covering sexism in the workplace. I couldn't pay into an occupational pension until I was 37, as I worked in HE on a series of renewable contracts, and was not eligible to join the pension scheme. My pension was massively curtailed as a result. Yes, I (and people in my position) could have started a private one, but there was no internet and it would have involved going to an FA (much rarer then than now) and signing up to something that was also relatively rare. Unemployment was very high, and committing to paying in to something they may not be able to afford next year (whether because of redundancy, contracts not being renewed or interest rates going even higher than the 16% we were already paying) was too scary. With hindsight I wish I had, of course, but life isn't that simple. Many women just wouldn't have had the money, even if private pensions were as easy to get then as they are now. The gender pay gap was horrendous.

Yes, today's taxpayers pay for today's pensioners, as has happened since the welfare state began, and yes, demographics have shifted. But it was always meant to be a reciprocal arrangement, so that we would get pensions in our turn. In line with the point of the thread, which is about the unfairness of paying PC at the same rate as pensions paid for by those who have worked for decades, it would be just as unfair to remove SPs from people who paid the pensions of the generations before them - particularly if the removal takes the form of means-testing which would penalise those who tried to cushion themselves in retirement by paying into occupational pensions when they could.

My 95 year old auntie was a tenant farmer’s wife for 50 years. She worked hard and earned nothing because her role was primarily in the home. My uncle died at 70 and left her with nothing because he never had anything to leave. I guess she should’ve topped herself 25 years ago seeing as her pension credit claim is such a burden.

I don't think you can just dismiss it as false narrative and spite. It's an undeniable fact that demographics have changed and there is a growing older population being funded by a shrinking workforce. That's unsustainable. Successive governments have failed to address the issue despite being fully aware of it. I'm in receipt of the state pension, by the way, before my comments are defined as ageism.

Agreed. I am tired of this false narrative that we all had it so good, had our own houses handed to us on a plate which are now worth millions, we’ve all got gold plated pensions and no-one was ever made redundant, list their business or had their houses repossessed. And now we’re a huge drain on the younger generation allegedly. It’s just ageism and spite dressed up as social justice.

Lots of people have not had access to pensions until more recently. Those who are claiming pension credits now were born in the 1950s or earlier. The majority of women did not have access to workplace pension schemes for quite a chunk of their working lives and even if they did pay in when they became available, they will not have been contributing for many years.

I was born later, but didn’t have access to any workplace pension schemes until I joined the public sector. Even then a lot of part time non medical workers were not eligible to join the pension scheme until April 91. Whilst payments into the pension scheme for those who were excluded was allowed to be backdated, it was unaffordable for most.

Just want to politely point out that only 40 % of the UK workforce work in large companies defined as 250 employees or more. The remainder work in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) or are among the roughly 10% that are self employed. Until 2018, when it became compulsory for all businesses of whatever size to provide a pension scheme, many SMEs didn’t. (This was phased in by company size starting in 2012). Please don’t assume that everyone who was in the workforce prior to 2012 has a company pension. They don’t. This is largely ignored by the MSM, BBC etc. who presumably all have nice company pensions.

Pension provision was much patchier. Its great that your employer did that, but when I was a similar age (but in '96) support staff were not eligible to join the scheme at my few jobs. I could have made a private arrangement entirely, with no employer contribution - but the prevailing view was the state pension would be enough for low earners anyway and i seem to feel some schemes outside of employer ones had restrictions around minimum contributions too. I wasnt until stakeholder pensions were introduced that I was given access to a fund.

I think stakeholder were before auto enrolment was introduced, employers were told they had to offer stakeholders pensions to everyone and that would have been in 1999 the law was passed, and around 2000 they came in. So you might well have been the first batch to be encouraged.

When I was 17, in 2000, a work place pension guy came in and talked to me about the benefits of putting some money in, even if it was only a fiver a week (I was an apprentice so earned 100 a week). Most companies had a pension scheme well longer than 10 years, it is only since then that we have had auto enrolment.

I think we need to be mindful of who is generating the data for income in retirement!

I don’t really know as this is accurate though. We’re a young couple in our twenties with a mortgage and our household income is 45k approx. We go on two holidays a year and don’t particularly want for much, we also have 2 cats. If we really needed to we could cut a lot back. By the time we’ve paid off our mortgage I don’t see why we couldn’t continue our lifestyle on considerably less income 🤷🏻‍♀️

i will caveat that by saying we obviously live nowhere near London! And if we did the scenario may be different.

um, it’s quite simple. You would have contributed to your lovely fat final salary pension when your employer told you about it, then retired at 50 (your house only cost 4x your salary anyway), with those minimal contributions having funded that buy-to-let you bought in the 90s on an interest only mortgage. Then your state pension kicked in when you were 65, paid for by those who are working and contributing knowing full well by the time they retire the state pension won’t pay out anything. Unfortunately the Governmenr are now means testing the winter fuel allowance, which is annoying for you as that was your Christmas champagne budget.

It is something that applies to those past pension age, it’s the same for PIP

I'm assuming back then that is how a review worked on high rate with the 10 year thing? Now for child DLA, you might get an award for 1 year, 2 years, 3 years etc depending on their care needs and when that ends, you need to fill out a form again and send more evidence and they review it all.

Between that, it's up to the parent to report any changes in circumstances should their care needs improve or get worse.

It's rife.

Yes it’s fraud - one of the many very complex and not for this thread reasons why I ex friended her. It doesn’t sit well with me

It seems the review is literally has anything changed and unless you say yes, the award runs for another 10 years.

She is an over sharer and got me to help her book the holidays so I know how much they cost). She told me she’d paid for her gym membership in one go

She gets high rate dla, full pension credit and higher mobility (despite no longer being eligible as they don’t check up on her).

im guessing - but don’t know - she has savings that are hidden as I literally have NO idea how she gets these hokidays

But I swear on my daughters life there is no bullshit, 100% truth

They definitely do for children on DLA but maybe not the case for the elderly who are still on it?

Yes definitely. From my experience there seems to be an awful lot of these older people still on DLA that have just been getting the higher rate mobility component and been getting it for years as it was obviously a lot easier to get with DLA than it is now with PIP. One of my most common jobs at work is people who are on HR mobility and now want to claim the care component so need help with the review form. I honestly don't think that they even re-assess the mobility component , you can actually say on the form what part you want looking at . Obviously mobility part can't be added or increased after state retirement age. So invariably they end up on top whack of both as they get older with more care needs, but most have been on HR mobility for years on end.

My dh is self employed. Has been for 30 years and has always paid tax and NI. So it can be done. Many self employed people make good money.

To be fair though, in pp's case, if want she is saying is accurate and she has all of the information, this ''ex friend'' is claiming fraudulently if she no longer qualifies for the mobility element but hasn't mentioned a change in circumstances.

Yes there are still an awful lot of people born before that date still claiming DLA.

Only if they were born on or before 8th April 1948.