Out of complete nosinesses, how much do teachers get paid?

[tikkakormaandsomerice]

So primary teachers
Secondary school teachers

What would they roughly get paid?

Teachers have a brilliant pension. If you don't think so then your education has failed you.

Defined pensions are being phased out because the country can't afford them. They are bloody brilliant. If you can get one taken it. If you can't afford to put in 7% of your salary then borrow to do that because your employer is going to put in SO much more.

So you've backtracked on it being final salary then?

Your employer only pays something if member contributions don't cover it. The 20-odd percent quoted at the moment is a fictional figure and doesn't impact the pensions of those currently contributing to the system.

Defined-benefit pensions are being phased out in the private sector: they still very much exist in the public sector. The cynic in me would suggest that has less to do with affordability and more with profitability.

No-one has said that it isn't a good pension. What has been posted, however, are corrections of some misinformation and that the overall benefit of the pension doesn't make up for teacher wages being disproportionate with the workload/qualifications/etc.

And paid a huge sum into his pension for nothing.

If it had been a defined contribution pension, his relatives would have inherited tens of thousands of pounds, if not six figures.

Even without the employer contribution, teachers pay a lot of money into their pensions. That and 40 years of investment growth adds up to a lot.

No. Defined benefit is final salary.

No, that’s not true.

Before teaching, I worked in the private sector company that had a defined benefit scheme.

It swapped from a ‘final salary’ scheme to a ‘career average’ scheme while I was there.

Take a 60 year old senior manager. In a defined benefit final salary scheme, the ‘defined benefit’ -ie the amount of pension paid - was based on their final salary. So if they finished on 100k, then their pension defined benefit was based on 100k.

However, another senior manager retiring at the same age and who earned 100k until the final 2 years, at which point they stepped down into a lower and less well paid role in the company due to caring responsibilities, would be paid a defined benefit pension based on that lower final salary.

In a ‘career average’ scheme, each employee ‘buys’ a bit of pension each year, based on their salary that year. When they retire, they get a defined benefit pension based on that ‘career average’, whether they finished in 100k or 50k or 20k.

Defined benefit simply means ‘you know what you will get’, rather than it being based on the vagaries of the stock market into which your pension money is invested. How that defined benefit is calculated can be ‘final salary’ or ‘career average’ or, presumably, others.

Specific information on the shift of teachers’ pensions from final salary to career average (both defined benefit schemes) is here:

https://neu.org.uk/advice/teachers-pension-scheme-career-average-pension#:~:text=Career%20average%20is%20a%20way,the%20whole%20of%20your%20career.

Why did we go on strike when it was changed from final salary to career average then?

I think some people think 'final salary' meant that you actually received your full salary when you retire.

This https://www.saga.co.uk/magazine/money/retirement/pensions/how-do-final-salary-pensions-work is a reasonable explanation of how final salary pension schemes worked (and why they were phased out, including for teachers).

What defined benefit career average pensions do is remove the ‘multiplier’ of final salary. Instead it is based on what an employee has earned over their career, which is usually - not always, but usually - a lower figure and thus a lower pension.

So the ‘step down at the end of their career’ example will possibly get a higher pension under career average. Most people, who earn progressively more through their career, will get a lower pension under career average. It’s also worth noting that for public sector career average defined benefit schemes, the Government-as pension provider - has a lot of power over what that ‘defined benefit’ is each year, when it can be taken etc etc.

So I could have been enticed (as a pre 2015 joiner) by the final salary teachers’ pension with a retirement age of x. Whether my forced transfer to a career average scheme with a retirement age of y (and benefits that may not keep up
in any way with inflation, col etc) makes being a teacher equally attractive is moot, especially as (as a primary teacher with sone job-induced MH difficulties as well as caring responsibilities) I am unlikely to work continuously full time until my later retirement date.