To think statutory maternity pay should be the same amount as the state pension?

Great post!

Honestly, these thinly disguised ageist posters are getting tiresome.

whatever generation you’re born into will have upsides and downsides. The irony of the OP linking SMP with the state pension….. does she not realise that today’s ‘wealthy’ OAPs are the ones who got barely anything in the way of SMP and were returning to work with 3 month old babies. Paying full childcare. And exorbitant mortgage rates.

Perhaps it’s natural that the younger generation want to believe those who came before them had it better. I’ve even had occasions when my own adult kids have moaned a bit about student debt and told me how lucky I was to get a grant. I just remind them that only 7% of the population went to university when I did, and that no one swanned off on a gap year, it was unheard of for students to own cars and a
night out was a cheap beer in the student union.

i’m well aware that some aspects of my life as a 20/30 year old were better than for my children. Housing in particular is a real concern and I fully support affordable housing and schemes to help the younger generation get on the ladder.

but I’m equally aware that they’ve had access to opportunities, travel etc which were absolutely out of reach for young people when I was in my 20s. I’m also acutely aware that the maternity provision my dd will get if she had a child is massively better than my generation had.

I wish people would get a bit of perspective rather than constantly berating those of us who’ve done nothing wrong, just grown older and worked for 40 years!

Sorry for trying to help. Lesson learned.

we don’t want to grow the population any faster as we can’t cope with homes and hospitals -that makes i think “give potential mummies money” is predicated on “ we need to grow the white population to make up for the fact that when we kick out the undesirables we will have shafted our country and will be desperate short of workers “

it’s racism

I’ve had 2 kids, I think SMP is not bad. What do people really expect they should be getting paid when they aren’t at work? It’s a lot more than SSP, and people can’t generally plan/save for sickness like they can pregnancy.

But then you're entitled to a gateway benefit which is worth more.

I agree with you OP! The declining birth rate is an issue and I think those who don’t acknowledge that will be in for a shock further down the line. I think the financial element is one of the biggest reasons for it. Although there are other factors which we did consider before having children. But personally for us, the financial impact was our biggest consideration. Currently on maternity leave and it’ll be a good 6 months to a year of me working full time to recover financially. And we’re in Wales so don’t get the subsidised childcare from 9 months.

Again, missing the point! This thread isn't a discussion of why I/we don't get full state pension. My quibble is with the OP's assertion that all pensioners get £230.52 per week, which is what she has based her argument on. As I said before, only 50 - 51% of people of state pension age receive the full amount. That obviously means that 49 - 50% don't.

Yes, she hasn’t done a very good job of disguising her real agenda

Indeed, OP is clearly a rage-baiting ageist like about 80% of the people on this thread. That's fine on Mumsnet though so.....

And I wish they'd shut the (constant) fuck up about how hard young people have it without qualifying it in any way. ALL of my friends kids have managed to buy houses themselves and have fulfilling jobs but then, they don't aspire to live in Chelsea

They can fight all they want. The money won't be there!

It will be interesting to see if you do. There are so many young people on here who think pensioners get too much, seem to be under the illusion that all pensioners are loaded and think we should get rid of the triple lock. Young people should be fighting to the death for the triple lock to ensure you get the same benefits that older people get now. If you don't then it's your own fault.

Less generous than what? The point of it was an attempt to ensure that everyone was building a pension. Many companies did not offer pensions at that time, particularly to junior people. How can a pension be less generous than no pension?

Yes but the point is there must be reasons and being married or having a private pension aren’t the reasons.

Does your husbands private pension plus the state pension equal more than £12570? If so he’ll be paying tax on the difference.

With you, you might not have had the qualifying contributions or made the “small stamp” when you were working.

You also maybe getting the old state pension rather than the new one.

My point was that not all pensioners receive the full state pension. I don't (for whatever reason) and neither does my husband (for whatever reason). In fact, the proportion of pensioners currently receiving the full state pension is between 50% and 51%. This is what makes using the full amount as a basis for your argument both wrong and pointless.

To correct another point you made, not everyone who doesn't receive the full state pension can apply for or get pension credit so, again, not every pensioner by any means, receives the full £230 per week.

Auto-enrollment for the smallest employers began in 2018.

@Drdogooder SMP is still covered by the state and is reclaimable, for small business you get back more than paid out to cover some of the pension/ER's NI contributions. SSP is the only once which has to be funded by businesses.

I think there’s a lot of truth in this.

The inter generational squabbling about who has it hardest is completely and utterly pointless. There are benefits and challenges of living through any generation.

I’m well aware that my dd is having a far harder time getting on the property ladder than I did. But when she does, she’ll likely never have the disaster of living through interest rates that were routinely far higher than nowadays, and hitting 15% at one point. Quite frankly there were many times that dh and I utterly regretted having been able to get a 100% mortgage. Once negative equity hit, dh and I wished to god we’d just stayed in rented.

and if my dd decides to have a baby, she’ll get the option of a full year off work, 9 months of it paid, also the option of transferable leave with her partner (who will also have had paternity leave) plus subsidised childcare when she returns. She knows that’s a far better deal than juggling a 12 week old breastfed child with returning to work and having to pay full childcare costs as I did with her.

swings and roundabouts.

I don’t understand that. Both my husband and me are retired. We both have private pensions.

But we have both had a letter saying we will receive the full state pension when we’re 67.

Him in August 2029 and me in November 2030.

The whole world needs less people.

Falling birth rates means there will be a period where older populations will dominate and it will be difficult but then over time it will readjust.

Healthy life expectancy is very relevant. Among my family all my older relatives lived their last few years unhealthily except one Uncle of mine and DH great uncle and they literally dropped dead in their 80’s. It doesn’t just apply to the old either an example is anyone who developed diabetes used to just die young.

Modern medicine is assisting in making the world a worse place if you think beyond the emotion of people dying but most can’t or don’t want to do this.

But it just becomes all very much a big intergenerational squabble about who uses what resources and how those resources were amassed or distributed all affected by legislation of the time.

I don't see why you are making the comparison between the state pension and SMP as they are completely unrelated. The first is paid to people who have paid national insurance for 40 years and have reached an age where they would struggle to keep going in the work place. The second is paid to enable women who have chosen to have a child have a bit more time at home before going back to work. Those who are unable to manage financially get other benefits which top this up. For those with partners on good salaries, a few extra quid would not incentive them to help raise the birthrate.

The irony is without that baby (who is supposedly too poor to be born) the burden of making sure us millennials get a similar pension (we won't) is a burden shouldered by the far smaller pool of our kids who did get to be born.

Don’t get sick then! I have cancer. Do you know how much ESA I get? £360 per month! 🤣

Don’t qualify for anything else and can’t work because I have too many hospital appointments. My mortgage alone is £1700 a month.

At least maternity leave you can plan and save for and you know it’s temporary.

I think what you mean is that your dh must be taxed on his state pension because his income along with his private pension reaches above a certain threshold? You don’t get less state pension just because you’ve also paid into a private one - quite rightly!

also unless you are part of an old system, you should be assessed as an individual for state pension. It’s about whether you’ve paid in a full NI record, not whether you’re married or not.

I agree with you though about the basic premise, it makes no sense to compare SMP with a state pension. Maternity leave is by definition a time-limited thing. You can receive SMP for 9 months and then return to work and your salary and also now receive subsidised childcare from 9 months. In my experience, very many mothers choose to take a full year off work which indicates that a) they can afford the additional 13 weeks without SMP and b) they prioritise those extra 13 weeks over returning to work.

No-one is saying to take the money away from pensioners and we aren't claiming that is what is being said. But that is the point, no-one is saying there should not be more help but comparing themselves to pensioners and what they receive is just totally stupid.

My Mum (born in the late 30's), could not afford to be a stay at home mum, there was no year off, you had your baby and you got back to some type of work. If you were lucky enough to get on the housing ladder (which was rare for working class), you bought a doer upper and had 2nd hand furniture. There was a choice between a car and a home, few could rarely afford both - you just need to be realistic about the income bracket you are comparing with.

There are many pensioners who have worked full lives on low income jobs, with no opportunity to save or acquire assets and they are stuck on basic state pension and can't afford to turn their heating on - this isn't just temporary its permanent so comparing them to maternity leave financing issues, just isn't a relevant comparison.

Both have compelling arguments as to why things should be improved, but comparing like for like is stupid.