To think this is a real possibility in the future? (State pension)

I also think that the amounts pension companies forecast for what they think is a minimum/standard way of living is vastly inflated as well - which makes sense because obviously they have a vested interest! e.g. Retirement Living Standards suggest a couple need £60,600 for a comfortable retirement, £43,900 for a moderate one - but according to ONS last year "Median equivalised household income in the UK before taxes and benefits was £38,900, increasing to £41,900 after taxes and benefits.”

@tokennamechange
I think that the forecast spending are quite low not vastly inflated. First comfortable doesn’t mean average, whereas moderate does so it makes perfect sense that a moderate retirement would be close to the average household income.
“The figures show how much someone may spend at retirement across three different living standards, they are an estimated expenditure, not an income. They assume you own your own home with no mortgage so you may need to add or reduce other costs depending on your circumstances, such as mortgage, rent or social care costs and any income tax on your pension. Also remember, your income may be taxed, so plan for that too.
The Standards aim to offer a clear and realistic view of people’s retirement spending in the UK, helping you use your current lifestyle and cost of living as a guide for what you might need in the future.”
https://www.retirementlivingstandards.org.uk/

Most don’t save to supplement everyday costs of living, they save so that they can go on holiday, pursue hobbies, private dental care, possibly private health care if placed on a long waiting list for hop replacement etc, big unexpected expenses like new roof, replace kitchen, car, help children out, etc

I’ve long resigned myself to being screwed in old age. I’ll likely be on sickness benefits if they scrap the pension.

I started work at 16. There was no such thing as auto enrolment back then. I worked in low paid jobs like shops and other small businesses. No one ever really mentioned pensions. I’d heard of the old age pension so naively assumed that was just what everyone had and it was fine. As lovely as my parents were, they never taught me about pensions etc.

I was 25 before I’d started a “career” as such. And this was a self employed career. So still no company pension. Starting a private pension never really crossed my mind. Again it was just naivety, not deliberate. I was saving for a house deposit anyway so was prioritising that more than anything. Managed to get myself my small flat aged 32.

Met my now husband when I was 34. We knew we wanted a family so when we knew we were serious we started saving to move to a bigger house. Finally got one and done it up etc and had got married. Aged 37 now and we’d been trying for a baby for a year with no success. Had investigations but nothing “wrong”. Was offered NHS referral for one round of IVF but after a few cancelled appointments time was ticking so we went private. We ended up spending 50k on tests and multiple rounds of IVF over the next few years until we gave up. So all our savings were gone and we had a bigger house with a mortgage that we’d spent money on.

6 years down the line since we gave up trying for a baby we’re almost back on track with money/debt. But we’re mid-late 40s now. And I still have no pension. (My husband does but it’s very low as he also only was able to get a workplace one when it became compulsory. And his employer contributes the minimum).

We decided a while back that our house would be our “pension”. We’ll happily sell up and downsize and live off the proceeds. But then you hear people saying property prices will crash. If they do then we won’t even have that. In that case I’ll be on sickness benefits. I already struggle with work due to severe back issues (caused by work). I sometimes get home from work and just lay on the floor for an hour to relieve the pain. I’m not even 50 yet. If anyone thinks I can still be working in 20 years they’re having a laugh. Yes I could change career. But as everyone knows, it’s not really that easy these days. Jobs are short in supply. Most places would rather not hire an almost 50 year old with no experience would they let’s face it.

still more than working people often get - who also pay council tax!

I don't know, OP - I agree it will be an issue but more along the lines of 'pension age keeps rising' (to the point where barely anyone will actually still be able to work full time and so will be trying to fund the in-between years from, say, 65-75 somehow - probably via being signed off as unfit to work) rather than abolished completely - just because the backlash of people who have already paid in for years and the prospective legal challenges will be too much aggro for any govt to approve it.

We have to bear in mind that we're hardly alone in this - nearly every country in europe will be the same. Look at the outcry in france when they had to push forward the reform to age 64, which is still the lowest in europe - how are they supposed to fund that? They have a similar aging population, low youth employment, etc. to us.

A huge amount of pensioners today are leaving hundreds of thousands of pounds to their descendants. If reducing state pension means instead people spend that money themselves - we'd have to get better means of equity release/back owing costs etc. so people can stay in their own homes, rather than be cash poor but sitting on a quarter of a million investment - on the face of it that isn't a bad thing, albeit would stick in the craw against people who have never/rarely worked. But that's the case now.

I also think that the amounts pension companies forecast for what they think is a minimum/standard way of living is vastly inflated as well - which makes sense because obviously they have a vested interest!

e.g. Retirement Living Standards suggest a couple need £60,600 for a comfortable retirement, £43,900 for a moderate one - but according to ONS last year "Median equivalised household income in the UK before taxes and benefits was £38,900, increasing to £41,900 after taxes and benefits."

So it makes no sense that people "need" twenty grant a year extra to have a comfortable retirement than the average person gets by on when working full time - particularly given 'the aim' is to not be supporting dependents, paying off a mortgage/for childcare, commuting costs, saving for retirement (i.e., all the highest outlays) etc. by then. Obviously there will be some in better positions and some in worse, and potentially additional costs like care, etc. But even taking all that into account, it will be perfectly possible for most people to have a decent retirement, if they accept they'll need to actually spend their savings rather than trying to hold onto them to pass on to their kids.

Yes, at the same time as those coders were let go, another company (medical lab or similar) was recruiting coders, but I have no idea where these were and whether or not they were WFH or hybrid roles.

We need coders to use AI. Coders just need to move with the times, like everything.

Historically, it was designed to be universal to get older people out of work and make space for the young.

That problem hasn't gone away and if anything, with costs and difficulties of gaining employment in later years, it isn't a problem that will go away. Which means top roles won't become free, which trickles down to the squeezed middle - not progressed enough to earn enough for a good retirement, but earning too much for a state pension, so they sit in their jobs.

No workforce movement means no youth employment.

So I think the government will always need to incentivise leaving, unless they expect employers to take the legal risk of putting poor old Steve out to pasture after decades of service and capability because he falls asleep promptly at noon and they want a battle about whether that's a health and safety risk and months of drawn out sickness.

But UBI would get rid of a huge amount of DWP employees, so there would be a saving there. My NDN is a UC Decision Maker and some of the cases are really complex, so very time-consuming. Much more straightforward to knock out this layer of bureaucracy.

Yes but they wouldn’t be paid any extra UBI for it.

Not if they did not have all the add ons for children and housing.

But they could be in Further Education, either college or sixth form. If that figure is correct, that's an awful lot of NEETs!

Absolutely this.
A flat rate of maybe more than a £1000 but no other extras for children or housing..
If you want those then you work for it.
Otherwise there is no point in having all the extra top ups as the country couldn’t afford it anyway.

But AI is here and there is no stopping it! Whether or not it's good for society is academic because the genie is out of the bottle. DD was saying the other week that one company had let go 2000 coders. Multiply that a few times and that's a lot of people searching for the few jobs there are. I tell any young person I meet that they should get a trade. These jobs are much safer.

Being a parent is work.

Everyone aged 18 and over would get UBI, and if you wanted more money to say, buy a house or a new car, you would need to work. There would be no Personal Allowance as that would be covered by the UBI, so everything you earned on top would be taxed.

@Smouty84 but that’s the way it’s going without a ubi! People realising they can get benefits for things like anxiety and depression (easy to exaggerate). Benefits with with all the add ons (heating help etc) ‘pays’ more then working even more so when you factor in not having to buy work clothes, pay to get to work then you’re quids in. On top of that let’s encourage people to have more kids by lifting the 2 child cap because evidently we need more people to do jobs that don’t exist or that noone wants to do. Let the other mugs work at the shop, cinema etc!

How can you stop them though?

Nonsense! In 1974, when I went to university, under 10% of school leavers were deemed university material. While I am sure there were still a few dozy colleges that took the "right" candidates, it wasn't most.

People who won’t work can’t have children. Surely that suits you?

And not everyone would fill their free time in the way you would do. If my exDH didn't have to work he would become a hermit and rarely leave the house.

I am retired, and thoroughly enjoying it. Would I have wanted to live my whole life like this? Hell no - and I'm a person who solely worked to live and didn't really enjoy my jobs. However, I'm pleased that I had the opportunity to work, to contribute to society, to meet a vast array of people I would never otherwise have met and to learn things I would never have wanted to by choice. I couldn't wait to leave school at 16 and begin work, and other than regretting my choice of jobs I wouldn't have had it any other way.

It's a ariy fairy world where people can just please themselves and do what they want.

Not sure which were the Great Civilizations which were democratic in the past??? Surely not Rome, China, India, Sparta etc. Is it an apology for Dictatorship? Nazi style? There is of course no evidence that Tytlier wrote this at all. It appeared in Oklahoma in 1951. Tytlier was a Scot. He died in 1815!

I suspect that any basic income is likely to be a few days late and a few dollars short, of expectations if not real needs.

IMHO, I think we need to rewrite the political landscape so that geriatric, demented maniacs are ineligible. If the oldest person eligible to hold office was 60, then that person would have 15- 20 years to live with their choices; they would have to justify decisions to their younger relatives.

They wouldn’t get anything extra for children. £1000 each would be it. If they want children they have to work.