State pension

Fair dos, I can see what you're saying.

Are you suggesting all someone has to do in order to do well is to try hard enough? Life really isn't that simple, I'm afraid.

I couldn't agree more. I left school with less than 5 GCSEs at grade C and earn the same as my uni-qualified husband of ~45k pa.

I was from a family that didn't give a shit about education, his did.

I had opportunities to progress by starting at the bottom and working my way up. My pointalogns with yours: opportunities simply won't exist for young people, of any education or background if older people are clinging to jobs to supplement their income.

So the pension is needed, if only to encourage older people out of work.

There never was a social contract. If there was, sustainability would have been central to it.

And god the predictable boomer bashing from a few posters is so damn boring. There are pros and cons to being born into any generation. Constantly berating any one generation is negative and unfair. The real problem is the social contract in Britain has been well and truly broken.

Did you go to Uni B? My youngest didn’t and has the same job you have. He was lucky that a LA takes in trainee accountants (Cipfa), and puts them through their exams. Obviously while working full time. He didn’t fancy uni. But he gets more than my eldest who had a degree and a masters.

And it’s equally true that you can take two people from the same background, with equal opportunities available to them and people will respond differently. Some people are prepared to take risks/work harder/do difficult or stressful work etc etc. You see it in families where children are raised in the same environment and go to the same school etc yet may have wildly different outcomes due to how they respond to those opportunities

But people who've been low earners all their life wouldn't need a pension pot of £450k at retirement, as that would give them an income higher than their earnings when they were working which is unnecessary!

Those "wanting" a relatively high income in retirement would have been relatively high earners during their working years so could have afforded to pay a decent whack into their pension (especially if their employer was also paying a whack in, effectively doubling up more or less depending on relative percentages).

Nail on the head. Things have changed.

Not easy to get a house/flat when house prices have risen far higher than wages over the past few decades.

"Do well at school" no longer leads to "get a job". You're missing the Uni years which are now pretty much essential for most decent jobs/professions. The days are long gone where 5 O levels is good enough for a decent office job and 3 A levels for a professional training role.

These days you can work your arse off and still can't afford to "support" yourself.

Boomers need to start understanding how things have changed over the past few decades, mostly for the worse for today's youngsters/young workers.

I said that £20/month (£14 income loss due to tax relief) would give £50k at age 65 - since that's how much the pp implies she has in her pension (based on £200/month annuity).

I got that number by asking AI how much you would have if you had invested £20 per month in the ftse 100 with dividends reinvested for the last 40 years. That kind of manipulation is exactly what AI is good at! It will have considered the actual performance of the ftse 100 at every point over the last 40 years, and how much growth each month's £20 will have achieved.

Whilst pp is late 40s - so the real value will be the last 20 years followed by the 20 years still to come, rather than the last 40 years - it's a close enough approximation.

To get £450k after 40 years in the ftse 100, someone who is 65 now would need to have invested £130/month total in the ftse 100 since they were 25. That's 4% of the median UK salary (£39k) or 6.5% of full time NMW.

That percentage is the total - including employer's contributions.

Currently most people advise their kids to do well at school, get a job, house yourself and then have kids. You support yourself and the reward is choice and buying nice things like holidays.

The only snag being that the playing field isn't level, so it's not as simple as you're making it sound. One person's striving can net twice the results of someone else's, due to all sorts of factors such as intelligence/aptitude, health, advantages (or otherwise) afforded by one's background, and so on. Not everyone is able to propel themselves into a situation where they can afford to save substantial amounts for their future.

Currently most people advise their kids to do well at school, get a job, house yourself and then have kids. You support yourself and the reward is choice and buying nice things like holidays.

Which is exactly what boomers are being lambasted for doing.

Completely agree. Very sad indeed.

One of the first things Labour did was try and cut welfare though and it went down really badly so I'm not sure what the answer is. The rich don't feel the cuts, the poor don't have anything to give and noone likes the optics of taking from the poor, so the squeezed middle get gotten again. Ultimately the middle will either need to he rich or poor and you can't just choose to be rich so...? Nightmare.

I've confused nothing. Regarding workhouses, I'm basing what I am saying upon remarks that were made in all seriousness on another recent thread. There absolutely have been calls for workhouses to be brought back. Mumsnet's search facility is pretty easy to use if you don't believe me.

And re potential abuse of assisted dying, if you've read even a few of the myriad threads on MN moaning that pensioners are having the temerity to live too long, the airy assertions that people past a certain age have 'no quality of life anyway' and some of the sheer nastiness that gets directed at older people generally, then I'm really surprised you don't see a risk of potential future abuse of assisted dying if (or more likely when) it becomes law. There have already been cases in various countries illustrating the potential for it. You sound very naive in some regards.

It’s also not much more than inflation.

@RealBecca

Take away the pension and my advice to my child will be to have your kids young, declare yourself homeless and get a cheap council house, work for minimum wage and hours so you see more of your kids and get your benefits and then give up work when you've had enough and do whatever is needed to remain eligible for universal credit or pension and i/you can help you or your kids afford the cheaper days out for people on certain benefits

Sadly that's what a lot of people do - plan for a lifetime on benefits. It's why the country is in such a bad state in so many ways. We need brave and visionary politicians to change it, but we don't have any!

BTL landlords have been sucking up "cheap" starter homes for a few decades meaning those who want to buy are stuck in long term renting as they're not in as good a position to buy as BTLers, i.e. they'll need a mortgage whereas multiple BTLers often have cash behind them or re-mortgage other properties to raise cash, first timers are often excluded from auctions for the same reason, first timers don't have the same network of tradesmen as professional BTLers have. It's really not all about cost of rents to those who "want" to rent long term. The housing crisis has lots of different issues.

The risk is the knock on effect to aspiration: why take care of yourself if doing so affords a lower standard of living than letting the state do it for you?

Currently most people advise their kids to do well at school, get a job, house yourself and then have kids. You support yourself and the reward is choice and buying nice things like holidays.

Schools, doctors and dental care are struggling, housing etc is expensive and i wouldnt mind betting airfare will keep increasing and take away foreign holidys (which is also aspirational).

Already, if you end up seriously unwell the government expect you to fund you own care.

Take away the pension and my advice to my child will be to have your kids young, declare yourself homeless and get a cheap council house, work for minimum wage and hours so you see more of your kids and get your benefits and then give up work when you've had enough and do whatever is needed to remain eligible for universal credit or pension and i/you can help you or your kids afford the cheaper days out for people on certain benefits.

I'm not rage baiting and i think thats what's scary because most people want the best outcome for themselves. Taking the state pension feels like the line in the sand as its like the NHS: dental nonwithstanding now 🙄 we broadly buy into the idea that you work and support the state and then the state supports you when you no longer can work.

People will stick in jobs until they are pushed out, which was part of the point of pensions in the irst place, to support people to leave and keep the chain moving, making space for youth at the bottom to enter the world of work, support themselves and make their way up. Won't happen if people don't retire.

I don’t know where you are getting your numbers from. What sort of growth are you assuming? If you put in 10% to a DC scheme on average wage you’d be hard pressed to get £450k after 40 years with 4-5% growth a year compounded. And that’s the average wage.

Then the value of other benefits for those who rely on it will simply go up. Everyone talks about all these wealthy boomers who don’t need the state pension. The vast majority of these will be dead in a maximum of 20-30 years. Then what happens is the next generation with no where near the same decent private pensions will just need to claim other benefits to top up their income to liveable standards.

@Deafnotdumb
It will stay, but the value will go down.
This ⬆️

The BTL landlords aren’t the issue, the lack of housing stock is. They can only charge as much as they can as people have so few options. We need to build more and we’re absolutely not. Private renters are desperate and will pay pretty much anything as they need to live somewhere. Taxes on landlords and renters rights have meant lots of landlords have left the market, making the shortage all the more actute.

£200/month is £2400 year.
An inflation linked annuity giving that would cost £50k at 65.

If you put £20/month for 40 years (less than a full working life) into the ftse 100, the growth and compound interest will take it to £50k.

And that £20/month goes in tax free, so you're only giving up £14 of income.

Are you seriously telling me that in a full time job you couldn't afford to put in more than £14/month? Even before kids, or after they left home?

If you are one of the very few who genuinely couldn't afford that for a high priority need (ie your own old age) well, that's what the welfare state is for, and anyone who genuinely can't prioritise £14/month is already receiving a lot of benefits.

Do make sure that you're opted in to your employment pension scheme. Even on NMW, 5% comes to £60/month from the employer (plus your own contribution on top), which is 3 times what you say you have saved.

@SomeoneIsWrongOnTheInternet

perhaps bring the cost of living expenses down to the same as they were in baby boomer days? Kick private landlords back out of the equation and the entire country would be richer and more economically stable again.

Nail on the head there. Stop the richer people such as buy to let landlords stealing our young peoples’ futures would be a good start.