State pension

I’m not on benefits I never said that I was. I said I can no longer work due to my health and I do not have an income. I feel a bit like I’m stuck in limbo tbh.

I’ve got a house with my partner and I own my half outright. Then four years ago I can no longer work. so I now have no savings and no income.

My pension at 60 would have made all the difference in the world to me but now it’s not until I’m 67.

Yes it’s helpful if you are hungry & cold now to think well I won’t be in 30 years time!

So anyone who is an above average earner is part of the mega rich club? Not just someone who worked that bit extra harder at school/in their career because more fool
them they actually believed their might be some benefit to doing so 🤦🏻‍♀️ when in actual fact for most of us in our 40s a far better financial strategy would of been getting a job at 16, saving like mad while still at home, skipping uni and then paying down a mortgage early so not paying 1k a month in mortgage interest now (which equates to £2.5+k in extra income which needs to be earned to bring home enough post tax income just to pay that 1k a month interest)

@NeedingarestI would have been far better working f/t in my retail job & buying a property with a low deposit at 17/18 (can you get a mortgage at 17?). Going to uni & then the 08 crash & tightening of restrictions meant I had to save thousands.

You can certainly get a mortgage at 18 and I know quite a few people who went straight into work and did just that, even my niece did this fairly recently (she was 19) but had enough of a work record by then secure a mortgage with her partner (just before the interest rates shot up 4 years ago) Yes same for alot of us around that time, those that skipped uni and bought before around the early 2000/ did quite well and have now paid off their mortgages, but by the time those of us who went to uni had finished and secured a sufficient work record, house prices had shot up massively, we didn’t have sufficient deposits, lending criteria had tightened up, I didn’t end up buying until the ‘mid 2010s and we’ll be paying our mortgage till our 70s and our interest rate is nearly 5%

Of course it does! The triple lock has absolutely nothing to do with who gets the pension. My view is that we should protect the triple lock to ensure that those that rely heavily on a state pension do not fall into poverty. For those that don't need the state pension because they have a huge private pension, they should have it taken off them. If we means tested pensions, we wouldn't even need to worry about the triple lock as we would have enough money to support people properly.

In simple terms, give more to those that need it and less/nothing to those that don't * *

So who can afford to do without? And who "needs" it more than anyone else? Or you just spouting ideological nonsense because you know it wont impact you one way or the other?

'Worked a bit harder at school'. Are you suggesting that everyone has the same level of potential to begin with but those that end up with A*s just 'worked a bit harder'? So those that don't get high grades are maybe just lazy in your opinion?

Only if you want to take the maximum annual amount. You can start accessing your pension ten years before state retirement age should you wish with a level of reduction per year for each year early you claim it. it’s not reduced as such in total terms, just paid over up to ten further years for a bit less for each early year you take it. Either way it won’t “run out” during your lifetime so if you can make that annual amount work for taking it earlier you can.

People with no private pension need it more than people with a big private pension. How can you not work that out?!

There are 1.2million people in this country living on a state pension alone. You don't think they need a state pension more than someone bringing in an annual pension of £20, 30, 40, 50, 100k+?

Millionaires will already be submitting self assessment tax returns. Very easy to use that to reclaim benefits based on declared income. They do it already for child benefit, the tax free personal allowance, and now the winter fuel benefit. Costs nothing as the self assessments are already being prepared, submitted and processed. Just one more "box to tick" and one more line on the tax calculation. It certainly won't "cost more to administer"! If it's cost effective to means test child benefit and winter fuel allowance, then it's clearly cost effective to means test much larger benefits such as state pension, bus passes, and disability benefits for millionaires!

If anything, we should be applying to triple lock to pension credits only - they are the claimants who really "need" it as it's means tested and pension credit claimants, by default, are the poorest pensioners with no other income.

Why do you think people go without a chunk of their earnings every month if they aren’t going to benefit from it? I have an occupational pension because I pay a lot of my earnings into it every month. As well as paying a shed load of NI. Why would I pay into an occupational pension if I’m not going to benefit from it?

it’s not about being selfish or individualistic - it’s common sense!

Only about 12% of the population have private healthcare or nearly 90% that don't. You're way out of touch!

I disagree with this. Some of the poorest pensioners are those with a small private pension because it means that they pay tax and don’t get pension credit and the benefits that go with it. My friend has a small private pension of around £200 per month. She’d be better off without it as she would have access to benefits, most importantly housing allowance as her rent is £800 per month.

So you think £20k is a "big" private pension income? Really?

I'm a carer of children with additional needs so I cannot work due to my current circumstances...the future looks bleak for many like myself. Not much I can do about it though🤷‍♀️

I could get hit by a bus tomorrow though so that would be one less pension to worry about.

These things do cost money to administer, the amount of calls we’ve made to HMRC regarding the CBHIC, the payment plans we’ve had to set up with them. My key point still stands, it is never just the millionaires who are affected, that justification is always given when means testing comes in but the chop always falls much lower down the food chain. The justification for not giving all
students the full loan is that super rich parents will pay all their adult DC fees and living costs and their child will just invest their student loan and make a killing of it, so instead we’ve come to a system where children of middle income families who couldn’t afford to do that in their wildest dreams have to go without pr parents struggle to top up their loan. Same with the withdrawing of childcare where 1 earner earns over 100k, the number of women I know who have reluctantly given up their careers as it just isn’t worth it due to this, and yet their family is paying shed loads of tax. The system is just making people increasingly resentful and as much as you think that is unjustified people are getting increasingly annoyed about it and will vote with their feet

Support for the welfare state will continue to plummet if all parts just become a transfer from
those who plan for the future / make sensible choices to those who don’t.

On the basis that the % GDP spent on benefits is the same now it was in 1999, that isn’t happening, and state pensions are a pittance.

Support for benefits is based on what people believe about benefits, which is almost entirely wrong.

The state pension is included in taxable income, so it is already means tested.

How that money is spent has changed quite significantly though. Spending is increasingly concentrated on a smaller proportion of society.

I didn't suggest it as a good idea! Just saying, I think it is coming. If not as openly acknowledged policy, then indirectly through substandard care, and gradual tightening of eligibility rules.

No it isn't! Everyone gets it whether they've got a quid in the bank or a billion quid in the bank. Paying tax on your pension is nothing to do with means testing.

If you have an income which is considered 'comfortable' for a couple coming out of 1 person's pensions (not unusual for elderly couples for only the husband to have a significant work pension), then you hand 40% of the state pension straight back in tax.

Someone with no other income gets to keep £12540 of the pension.

Someone not rich but 'comfortable' only gets to keep £7524

Someone with twice the 'comfortable' income for a retired couple pays 60% tax on their pension, so they only get to keep £5016

(They are obviously also paying income tax on the rest of their private pension too - that's just taking off the tax on the state pension itself)

It's already means tested through progressive income tax.