To think pensions need huge reform?

Get your state pension at 60 they said, free bus passes, enjoy your old age, was looking forward to my purple rinse 😂 take it easy, you've worked hard for it, paid your tax and national insurance for many years, Free the job market for the young uns. Now its if you're healthy or managing, stay in work, us young uns will be paying you with OUR money, I'll retire at 67, should already have done, but hey ho.

@aburrsir

What are you doing to reduce your cost to the State?

Thanks. I should have clarified that I wasn't including the LG pension scheme. People don't seem to be bothered by the sheer scale of the liabilities of the unfunded DB public sector pension schemes, which taxpayers are picking up the tab for alongside the State Pension.

My gran, uncle and mother all went senile in their early 70’s. I’ve worked since I was 16 so am I fuck waiting till 75, I still have 20 years to go and wondering how i keep going.

The £10 bonus at Xmas and 25p increase for those who turned 80 have not changed in 54 years. £10 back in 1972 is now worth £171.

Just a small correction. The LG pension scheme is fully funded.

Do you feel as angry about unfunded public sector pension schemes? Or is it just the contribution-based State Pension system, which workers have paid into throughout their working lives on the understanding that if they pay in for 35 years, they will receive a State Pension?

If I were a young person now I'm not sure that I'd trust that the money I was paying upfront into a private pension would be safe for the future. Actually, thinking about it, I'm not sure I'd trust that one I'd been paying into for decades would either, as trust and all the old certainties seem to be unravelling.

Why do you need a breakdown when the government, the very same government that calculates and pays out benefits, is telling you what can be claimed in total? They haven't provided it so I've no idea what makes up the figures. If you really need to know try a FOI request to DWP.

On the other hand, our taxes are significantly lower than Europe, so it makes sense that our benefits are less generous. Our wealth inequality is much worse than Europe.

UK taxes are only lower for low-paid/average workers. Higher paid individuals are taxed on a par with (say) France, but the vast majority of UK workers are taxed at a lower rate. Picking on France in particular because I have lived there, but essentially there is a smaller zero-rated tax allowance, and rates of 30% apply to salaries of Euro 30k upwards. The 45% rate kicks in at a much higher salary - almost Euro 200k iirc. I have not looked into the "household tax" principles that apply in France since having DC, but suspect this would also work better than having the cliff edges e.g. for child benefit.

In the UK you pay an effective rate of 62% at £100k and the 45% rate starts at £125k.

It works because the bulk of workers in France are taxed at 30%, not because the Europeans have somehow reversed the Laffer curve.

The UK only spends around 4.5% of GDP on state pensions, whereas this is 10%-12% in Europe. So from that, you could say pensions are too low.

On the other hand, our taxes are significantly lower than Europe, so it makes sense that our benefits are less generous. Our wealth inequality is much worse than Europe.

State pensions should be means tested. The government should be there to support those who need support, not to provide some sort of reward for making it to SPA. People who are mortgage free with a £50k a year private pension do not need an extra £12.5k a year from the government.

Tax the rich. Help the poor. This shouldn’t be complicated. But people always punch down. People who are struggling always blame those on benefits or pensioners struggling to make ends meet on £12.5k a year while still paying rent, rather than the wealthy ones receiving the exact same pension and spending it on financial advice on how best to avoid inheritance tax.

Please remember it’s never the child’s fault and they will be the ones to suffer if there’s less money.

Here you go. If you know its on the government website, you've already seen ir and know I'm correct.
www.gov.uk/benefit-cap/benefit-cap-amounts

Ok, the amounts people can get is on the Gov website. Show us a breakdown on how you arrive at those figures.

Yes they do, the real dissabled who have to fight for everything whilst the thurd generation scroungers take everything they can get their hands on. Do you realise that an 18 yo single mother gets fuel paid for, a flat or similar which has rent heavily subsidised and a whole load of otherbenefits. The average amount of disposable income that teenager has availabble to spend on her and her child is between £1400 and £1600 per month. After having the majority of bills paid through the benefits system, that's hers to spend how she wants. Bit more than most pensioners are getting wouldn't you say!

The wealthy are laughing at you all racing to the bottom.

And most people on working age benefits have paid in until they became too disabled to pay in any more (while others continue to pay in despite disability even if they cannot pay in as much as they'd have been able to if disability hadn't struck). We do not need to take any more from those that have the least. Why can't we focus on trying to get more from those who have plenty to spare.

Many people on benefits get a lot less than pensioners.
Not all pensioners have contributed either. Some were "scroungers".

You do realise many people have paid into their pension for well over 40 years. Some people, quite a lot actually, live on £12,000 per year and have no other source of income but no doubt you think £1,000 per month is enough to give the poorest in society after working all their lives. If successive governments had any backbone they would cut benefits for scroungers who cost a lot more than pensioners. After all, if youre on benefits, most of your basics are paid for by the government, so why are they given so much? Pensioners have contributed to society, who is anyone to say how much is 'reasonable'. You want to savemoney cut the benefits of those that choose not to work.

No one would work for public services though
The pension is why most stick it out

It doesn't need to "fit" with figures from earlier decades - it stands alone as solid evidence that the welfare bill is not spiralling or in any way responsible for the declining living standards so many of us are experiencing. The welfare bill has been as "high" as it is now or higher during multiple periods of strong economic growth and rising living standards - and it is still fairly average for countries similar to the UK. Many countries spend vastly more and are not seeing declining living standards to the extent that we are. So it's clearly inaccurate to blame welfare spending.

In the 40s, 50s and 60s there was a lot more well paid work available for people in relatively lower income demographics meaning a higher percentage of the population could earn a living wage with no government top ups needed and there were likely fewer mental health issues as a result. Divorce was also much harder to obtain so the state didn't have so many single parents to support. Pensioners weren't such a large proportion of the population either (with universal state pension not paid at all until 1948). We can't reverse most of these changes so I don't know what you want to see happen?

While starving and getting into debt when they're young...

I agree, yeah it needs the whole world to cooperate. Or countries to retreat from globalisation. I'll let people in those fields figure it out. The ones who studied and are being paid for it. They got us to this point so they can probably help us back out of it.

I think we need to end opt out - everyone who's working should be saving for their old age.

Who the fuck is going to be working full time in their 70s?

Do you know anyone? We have to be realistic. Physically, people are past full time work at 60. Raising the pension age is bollocks. Anybody who thinks that is a solution clearly has no credibility. 🙄