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

Your advice is one of despair. Do nothing.Trust in the employers? Hope for the best? In fact women form the majority of Union members 2024-5 figures. Up 134,000 on the previous year. Women lead 21 of the 47 TUC recognised unions. If you don't like what your Union is doing then vote the leader out. (As Unison - the major Health Workers Union has just done ). Unions are democratic organisations.
But don't pretend that you will get anywhere/any concessions/ decent pay and conditions etc without a strong union. Don't claim that the benefits which we have now were not fought for by Union members (often to their own detriment. Remember the Tolpuddle Martyrs who were transported for trying to form a Union.)

So all those saying in the future there either should or will be a basic universal income where working will be optional depending on how nice a life you want how exactly would that work?

Let’s say everyone gets £1000 a month to pay for essentials ONLY. It won’t leave a penny for anything fun or nice. Housing. Bills. Food. That’s it. Cool. Plenty of people wouldn’t mind that I’m sure.

What about families? Two 18 year olds decide they are happy living on their combined UBI. So £2000 total and they will not be working at all. They then have a child. So they need to have more added to their UBI right to pay for that child. As everyone on here points out on benefit threads it’s not the child’s fault the parent won’t work. So this couple now have say £2500 between them a month.

They continue to have a few kids over the next few years (not much else to do really as they don’t work) so now this couple are getting £4500 a month for them and the kids. Some of the kids need to start school. But they can’t find a school anywhere nearby. Why? No one wants to be a teacher. Everyone in their local town was also happy to be on UBI only so no one bothered to train as a teacher. But they manage eventually to find a school an hour drive away.

Now because they need to be contactable by the school “essentials” now include WiFi, phones for both parents, a car to drive the kids to this school miles away and pay for activities like sports or dance etc (if anyone in this town can be bothered to work doing that of course) so their UBI needs to be topped up to pay for these things.

And of course trips out like to theme parks shouldn’t just be for those children whose parents work! How othering would that be?? It’s not the children’s fault! They should be entitled to the same upbringing as everyone else. So more gets added on “for the children”. (Pretty sure most theme parks would be closed down though due to lack of workers as well)

Then one of their children is diagnosed with disability which means they have a limited diet of what they can/will eat. So they now need to get an extra “disability UBI credit for this”. So now despite the country only meaning to give everyone this basic universal income of £1000 each this family now bring in £8000 a month.

Now the kids are teens. They are bored shitless. They are desperately waiting until they turn 18 to also receive their £1000 a month UBI. They really fancy going to the cinema. But hang on there isn’t any. No one wants to work in one for the sake of a few extra pounds. The town tried to reopen one a few years before that and advertised for staff. The parents in this family said how disgusting it was that no one applied for these jobs! Why weren’t the local people thinking of the local children??? Obviously THEY wouldn’t be applying for one though. THEY had too much going on and didn’t need the money anyway with their £8000 a month.

Tosh

Well no I won’t read 152 pages of a fiscal report, I doubt many will, but clearly you have so maybe you could provide some key points for discussion on here? Where have I said the pension scheme doesn’t need reform? I don’t need to provide evidence for something I haven’t said.

Across all six countries, more people (28% to 55%) felt retirees with higher-than-average pension incomes should bear more responsibility for funding more generous state pensions for low-income retirees, rather than younger generations (15% to 31%).

Shouldn't be linked to pension income, should be linked to overall wealth - wealth tax would help across all age groups.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/dec/29/most-europeans-think-state-pensions-will-become-unaffordable-polling-shows

Interesting to see views across Europe

Well that was a load of crap, obviously. Did he tell you to take out an endowment mortgage as well?

As if you’ll read it anyway….

https://obr.uk/docs/dlm_uploads/Fiscal-risks-and-sustainability-report-July-2025.pdf

Interested to see your evidence that the current state pension system is sustainable and doesn’t need to be reformed.

Im now 60 and I remember being told by a financial advisor type person in 2002 that the state pension would would be means tested by the time I was eligible for it.

Yet we are constantly being told particularly on here that we need immigration at the level it is to pay pensions………so either immigration is the cause of the desperate financial situation we are apparently in or it’s the solution but it can’t be both.

It’s really irritating isn’t it, posters saying pensions can’t continue, we can’t afford it, ad nauseam while providing no evidence whatsoever for these claims.

Of course they will, that was never in question.

They will still be very well off indeed.
But you know that.

It’s bollocks. If someone’s in the tax bracket where they lose their personal allowance they’ll obviously be worse off regardless of where the money comes from.

That makes zero sense

It was suggested we emulate Canada. For the reasons you point out that’s a ridiculous suggestion.

That there aren't enough of them, but there are lots of Uni graduates not working...

Canada havn't opened their borders to take in millions of extra people, many of whom aren't contributing. They've got far better controls over working immigrants. Therefore, their population are more likely to be workers and more likely to be contributors, therefore their tax take will be higher, thus more able to pay state pensions etc.

Irrelevant as the same applies at all points on an income scale. They'll ALWAYS be better off due to receiving state pension whether they have other income of £10k, £100k or a £1million.

Canada operates its pensions in exactly the way the UK does. Canadians can claim theirs at 60, while 65 is standard.

Wtf are you talking about? I said they have ideas. We can look at them and redesign our system so it’s sustainable for future generations.

Or just bury our heads in the sand and pretend everything will be fine.

Define wealthy

Other countries vary massively to us in many ways, you can’t just cherry pick.

At no point have I said it has to go. I’m saying it has to change. I’ve said look at Australia, look at Canada - other countries have other ideas. And changes need to be announced decades in advance so we need to think 30+ years down the road.

I would like someone more informed than me to come up with a sustainable funding model for not just pensions but the NHS and elderly care too. Rather than propping up the pyramid scheme for another parliamentary term because pretending the system is sustainable is an easy vote winner.

Demographics have completely shifted since 1946 but the funding model hasn’t really. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out that doesn’t make sense.

The wealthy only pay a percentage. They'd be paying tax on other income whether they got state pension or not. The state pension is icing on the cake for them, even if they have to pay income tax on it - they're still considerably better off than if they didn't receive state pension.