What is the point of paying NI for 35 years to get a full State Pension, when people who have never worked receive Pension Credit anyway?

Previously, we did have earnings related state pensions, i.e. graduated pensions of the 70s?, then SERPS in the 80s and S2P in the 90s. On the grounds of "simplification", it was all dismantled and we're now left with a basic amount for everyone again. What a monumental waste of governmental time and money when they changed the system so many times!

I don't feel like a mug. We've worked and we own a home, children with good education and prospects, private pensions etc. Oh wait, should we have just not bothered living a nice life so we could get a shitty £238 a week when we're old?

Surely the idea is most people who have worked all their lives will have built up some assets and therefore not living on £241 a week

Making the gap bigger I guess. So people who have actually paid in don't feel like mugs.

An average earner with a normal life expectancy won’t have paid enough for their state pension.

What about higher earners or those without dc?

should state pensions be linked to how much tax you have paid in like other countries?

If you qualify for the guarantee credit part of pension credit, then you get passported eligibility, meaning you are entitled to the maximum amount of housing benefit if you rent and the savings limit, which is usually £16k, is completely ignored.

But it only became mandatory for employers to pay pensions in 2010, so there must be loads of older people who have no private pension

Todays pensioners generally have better private schemes as there were far more DB schemes in the private sector and public sector pensions were more generous

It's just generic benefits bashing.

There's probably nothing anyone can say if you want to feel bitter about this stuff.

Take care where you get your info from, read the real stats (very few people never work unless they have mental or physical health issues, the normal pattern is work, lose job, work, lose job - range of causes, some on the employer side some on the employee side).

The free dental treatment you talk of - minimal. The housing - precarious for most.

If you genuinely feel jealous of that life, you could give it a go.

I understand your frustration OP.
My DM gets a state pension and pension credit. She did work, but didn't pay enough NI contributions and had to stop working before retirement age because of ill health (arthritis).
She divorced 36 years ago, and could never afford to buy a property on her wages.
She lives in a 3 bedroomed council house with an assured tenancy, has no deductions for under occupying (bedroom tax), and since she is on MRC/HRM of DLA, she gets almost £500 per week excluding her rent, despite having over £16K in savings.

Otoh, my DMIL worked her whole life, paid into a private pension, bought a small property and in her twilight years, found with her small private pension and her SP, she couldn't afford the upkeep of her property so did as many of the jobs that needed doing herself and scrimped and scraped to afford the jobs she couldn't do.
None of it mattered in the end, because she ended up in a care home and her home was sold to pay for the care home costs.

It saddens me that she did everything she was advised to do and ended up in such a poor position, but thems the rules.

It's not so much about them getting the same amount, but why do they get extra benefits? If you're poor enough to need those extras on pension credit then an extra few quid a week on an actual pension isn't going to suddenly make you well off enough not to need them is it?

Most people don’t feel like mugs. I couldn’t care less. Pension policy isn’t about appeasing bitter people who can’t bear the fact that someone who hasn’t worked ad many years as them for whatever reason isn’t starving in the gutter.

As others have said, you only get £238 Pension Credit if you have no other income and if you don't have savings over £10k.

I used to work in benefits. Most PC claimants had worked at some point but might not have reached the amount for full state pension - for all sorts of reasons eg ill health, disability, caring responsibilities, poor life circumstances. I am not sure op why you are so envious of someone who has spent their life on benefits? Do you honestly think it's an enviable life? And would you like to see pensioners starving if they haven't reached full state pension?

She’s not wrong though. There will be lots of people whose situation isn’t the same, and of course they’ll have made and enjoyed different choices.

However if you have worked at a low paid job your whole life, just about got by, paid your credits, topped up any periods where you didn’t, then at the end of it you have nothing more to show for it than someone who hasn’t worked.

I agree.

I’ve finally paid enough years for my full state pension! I have no other pension. So yes it’s awful to think I e done all of that for exactly the same amount plus none of the extra help. Also dreadful that when I started to pay in for my pension I thought I d get it at 60 will now be 67. I do worry about it all , sleepless nights, as I no longer have an income as too poorly to work and no private pension.

Yes, I think you are being mean. We all get free prescriptions and eye tests over 60, which I think is ludicrous for those still working and on good salaries.

Perhaps it's relative too, because BillyBob on benefits, lives nowhere near me.

Can you stop working now and then you might qualify for pension credit?

I presume you are renting? I think old age is tough if you are renting, state pension or pension credit notwithstanding.

My neighbour died 2 days after his 65th birthday. Maybe he shouldnt have worked at all 💁

But, we cant see the future can we??

Love the faux naïveté- something just feels a little off or am I being mean?
so fed up of all the posts where someone can’t get their head around something…

Should we just throw these non-deserving pensioners in an active volcano instead?

This is such a narrow perspective!

Loads of people used their wages to buy houses - some now have savings - some loved their careers.

Working buys you mobility, freedom, pride, options - all these things are about quality of life.

Oh, another benefits rage bait thread.

The '35 years on rock bottom benefits followed by the bare minimum retirement income, whilst never being able to buy a house, living precariously and having no autonomy' doesn't seem a great option.

I'll get the full state pension in November. Plan to work, part-time for another couple of years.

I started work when I was 20, having 7 years off when the children were little.

My national insurance contributions, and tax, have gone towards those who have been unable to be financially independent. I ha e no issue with that. The mortgage was paid off several years ago, so no rent. I shall also get a handsome occupational pension, and continue to pay tax until I die.

We have a lovely home, the dc went to uni, we have nice cars, nice clothes, nice holidays, etc., and all of that will continue.

Otherwise I could have spent a life on benefits, in a nice house because I made it nice, but probably in a dodgy area, not ha e travelled and not have had nice things. The children would probably have had far fewer oppprtunities.

Go figure why work and making contributions is better.

so state pension to be higher than current amount?
or pension credit amount to be lower than current amount?

And what would you live on in the intervening years between giving up work and claiming pension credit?