I’ve easily found £30bn of savings, so why can’t the government do this?

…..according to chatGPT

Because all those people who have paid in to work pensions have also paid tax and NI. Why should their state pension be reduced because they’ve been sensible and paid in to employer pensions?

I think one thing they could do is make people actually claim state pension instead of being automatically sent it. Very rich people might not bother. This wouldn't save nearly as much though.

They already exist in various forms of residential care. You will prise the key to my house where I live alone out of my cold dead hands and even they I would come back and haunt you.

How about this state pension adjustment proposal?

Currently, the state pension system pays the same to everyone, even to households with very large private pensions and investment incomes. Much of this money ends up funding luxuries.

The proposal is simple:
*full SP for everyone who depends on it (60% of pensioners)
*households with more than £12,000 a year from private pensions, work, or investments have 50p of SP withdrawn for every £1 above that level, up to the value of the pension itself
*A quarter of pensioners would only have a modest reduction, and only the wealthiest 15% would no longer receive a publicly funded pension they do not need.

I used chatGPT to do the calculations.

Savings? THIRTY BILLION A YEAR

That’s 1% of GDP

List of things that could improve?

restored trust between generations so young taxpayers see their money spent on genuine need, not luxury.

national renewal: homes, NHS, lower childcare costs, investment in schools, training, the police force. It could be used to help families who are struggling with mortgage costs.

re-directing spending from low-value consumption (luxuries, imports) to investment (homes, healthcare, infrastructure) improves living standards

Positive effect on the bond markets, sterling value, credit-rating agencies, inflation trends, reduction in government debt - the UK really really needs this right now

I’d absolutely get up off my bum and vote for a party that proposed this. Would you?

Why did the Government back track on means testing the Winter Fuel Allowance??? Child Benefit became means tested years ago. Feels generational-biased.

I ran the calcs on chatgpt about public sentiment:

Whether people would back this reform depends on how it is framed, who explains it, and when it is introduced. Yet the evidence suggests that, if presented clearly and fairly, a majority of voters would support it.

Around thirteen million people currently receive the State Pension which is about one in four voters. The remaining three-quarters are working-age, and many of them feel that the system no longer reflects today’s realities. Research by YouGov and Ipsos shows:

• 60–70% of under-50s believe the triple lock and universal pension payments are unsustainable.
• Around 40% of pensioners agree that wealthier retirees should receive less.
• Roughly two-thirds of all voters support the principle that people with large private pensions should get a reduced State Pension.

So, it looks like it would actually be a vote winner at election.

How about this state pension adjustment proposal?

Currently, the state pension system pays the same to everyone, even to households with very large private pensions and investment incomes. Much of this money ends up funding luxuries.

The proposal is simple:
*full SP for everyone who depends on it (60% of pensioners)
*households with more than £12,000 a year from private pensions, work, or investments have 50p of SP withdrawn for every £1 above that level, up to the value of the pension itself
*A quarter of pensioners would only have a modest reduction, and only the wealthiest 15% would no longer receive a publicly funded pension they do not need.

I used chatGPT to do the calculations.

Savings? THIRTY BILLION A YEAR

That’s 1% of GDP

List of things that could improve?

restored trust between generations so young taxpayers see their money spent on genuine need, not luxury.

national renewal: homes, NHS, lower childcare costs, investment in schools, training, the police force. It could be used to help families who are struggling with mortgage costs.

re-directing spending from low-value consumption (luxuries, imports) to investment (homes, healthcare, infrastructure) improves living standards

Positive effect on the bond markets, sterling value, credit-rating agencies, inflation trends, reduction in government debt - the UK really really needs this right now

I’d absolutely get up off my bum and vote for a party that proposed this. Would you?

Why did the Government back track on means testing the Winter Fuel Allowance??? Child Benefit became means tested years ago. Feels generational-biased.

With the SP on top that’s 25k a year. The amount the government expects families to live off.

Excellent analysis.

However Farage has said he will implement a more extreme version of this, whereby the state pension would be means tested and only those with no other income would get it. Funny how it's not political suicide for him!

Millionaires can’t get free childcare. The 30hour entitlement is means tested.

I asked your beloved chatGPT why your proposal won’t work and this is what it told me. I hope people learn how to use these AI quickly as this thread shows how dangerous it is in the hands of the naive.

There are plenty of reasons why this proposal — though well-intentioned — could be seen as ridiculous or deeply problematic, both practically and politically. Let’s unpack them clearly:

🧮 1. It’s administratively
unworkable

The state pension is currently universal, meaning it’s simple and cheap to administer — everyone gets it automatically once they qualify.
Your proposed means-testing system would require:

• Annual verification of every pensioner’s income from all sources (private pensions, dividends, rent, etc.)
• Constant adjustments to their payments as their circumstances change
• A new bureaucracy to monitor, verify, and audit this information

👉 That would cost billions to run, eat into savings, and create endless disputes, errors, and appeals.

💸 2. It would
destroy simplicity and trust

Part of the success of the UK State Pension is that everyone feels they’ve earned it by paying National Insurance. Making it conditional breaks that link and turns it into a means-tested benefit, which:

• Stigmatizes recipients (“welfare” rather than “earned pension”)
• Deters people from saving for retirement — because extra savings reduce your state pension
• Creates resentment among those who’ve paid in but get less back

👉 It undermines the social contract that sustains public support for the system.

⚖️ 3. It creates a
perverse savings penalty

Withdrawing 50p of pension for every £1 of private income above £12,000 means:

• A 50% effective marginal tax rate on top of income tax and possibly council tax support tapers
• So someone earning £1 extra could lose 70p+ in total — worse than working-age disincentives
• This discourages saving and work among older people

👉 Economically irrational — it punishes thrift and rewards not saving.

📉 4. The “£30 billion savings” is almost certainly
wildly overstated

To save that much, you’d have to:

• Assume zero administrative cost
• Ignore behavioural effects (people adjusting income to stay below £12,000)
• Include wealthy pensioners’ entire SP value as “savings,” though many would find legal or financial ways to minimise losses

Realistic estimates (from IFS and OBR-type modelling) suggest such means-testing might save a fraction of that, maybe £5–10 billion at best — before bureaucracy and avoidance eat it up.

🧓 5. It’s
political suicide

You’d be:

• Taking away benefits from a highly motivated, politically dominant voter group (older, wealthier pensioners)
• Creating administrative chaos for 12 million people
• Turning a popular, universal benefit into a contentious one

No government would survive that — even if the economics made sense.

💬 6. It misunderstands
why
universality exists

Universal pensions aren’t a “handout to the rich”; they’re a social insurance — like the NHS:

• Everyone contributes and everyone receives
• The redistributive effect happens through the tax system, not by cutting entitlements directly

If you want the rich to contribute more, the clean fix is taxing pension income more progressively, not dismantling the universal state pension.

✅ In short:
The proposal sounds efficient on paper, but in practice it’s:

• Bureaucratically unworkable
• Economically self-defeating
• Politically impossible
• Socially divisive

That’s why most economists, actuaries, and policymakers consider such a plan a fiscal fantasy — not a credible reform.

I’ve paid voluntary NICs, so where is my refund?

Actually, no, I’d totally be affected by it. I’d be in the 85% with modest or no reduction in state pension. Based on my calcs, I’d probably lose a few hundred a year of SP. I’m ok with that. I’d rather my children had a decent future.

Ah, but the letter you get tells you that they will take the £100 (that's what the wfa is this year, it's not £200 per pensioner) back if your combined (state and private gross income) is above £35k.

I know because I had the letter on Friday.

I agree with you, I’ve had same idea but I’d make the threshold the HRT.
I’d also close DB schemes in public sector to new entrants & further accrual. I’d offer wage rises now to appease workers.
CGT on homes

Aside from the rights and wrongs the administration would be a nightmare.
Far easier to do it through tax and add national insurance to pensioners ( for their higher use of health care).
I am a pensioner who worked and saved into private pensions all my life but factored state pension in. I am happy to pay more but the burden suggested would be too much.

There’s a gapping flaw in your policy OP, and that is that you won’t see the saving for decades. You can’t implement it for those that have already retired or those approaching retirement. The average life expectancy in this country is 83, so if you’re going to take 16 years of state pension from someone that’s in the region of £192k. People plan their retirement income to suit their planned lifestyle, so need time to save and make up that shortfall - or it’s political suicide!