To think state pension needs to be means tested , most sill claim way more than put in due to life expectancy. The current simply can't afford it anymore, it's out biggest single outlay..

[wishedforchild2016]

Aibu ?. Interested hear opinions for/against..

Everyone gets 13 years of free education and now there’s the internet so if you want to learn a language or musical instrument you can. (I know there are lots of things that affect life outcome but just making a point)

Are you saying that because we got a bit of of our salary for ourselves, then the part of our salary we gave the government in taxes - to manage on our behalf, to pay for state services including the pension - isn't for us to get anything from at all?

Talk about entitlement!!

News flash: all of the money we earn should be benefitting us. The taxes we pay should be benefiting us. Otherwise our taxes are just state-enforced theft.

I mean that you’ve had your money that you paid in national insurance in terms of healthcare and education. Pension was a lovely bonus on top when you were all dying at a reasonable age now that you’re not it’s untenable
So I guess that’s the choice isn’t it? Do you want Longevity of life but at your own expense?
Or to die when you’re meant to die according to the statistics that were put into the actuary calculations 80 years ago nearly

I think the wider point is that we are being asked to pay more and more in taxes but get very little in return.

We get poor public transport, overcrowded state schools, long NHS waiting lists, rubbish social care and elderly care...

Now they are considering taxing state pensions or changing the eligibility.

I think we are reaching a point where people just have enough of this cycle of tax, tax, tax...

What exactly is being done with my taxes?

Why should I keep paying and paying and get nothing back?

We are reaching a point where the social contract is broken and people will either move out of the country, vote for populist parties out of despair or simply decide that work just does not pay anymore and give up.

Does none of my income tax go on healthcare and education?
that huge amount I’ve paid on top of NI contributions.

Can you not see that NI is not all we have paid, we have also paid income tax?
people who have paid no income tax but have received benefits, are they in negative equity?

That's true generally of entrepreneurs.
How many jobs companies like Amazon create is up for debate thought because as "disrupters" their business model relies on disrupting old ways of doing things (going to physical shops etc) with new ways (ordering online) and eventually outcompeting/driving under the legacy businesses. Shops also need warehouses to supply them and warehouse workers. As well as front of house staff. So when those jobs are lost,.maybe some of them go and work in the big new Amazon warehouse. But it's not reall.job creation. There will always be winners and losers.in these things. But Amazon relies on reducing staffing costs compared to traditional retail. So more losers overall.

I'm not against rich business people in general. But Bezos isn't the best example

The state broke the contract 25 years ago when it enabled private buy to let and let housing costs begin to outstrip wages.

This is not about ‘young people’. I am now 50, just a few years older than millennials, and was never from a nice supportive well off family background. It feels like it’s people like me, who tried to work up, who got screwed over the most. I’d be better off now if I’d gone on benefits and got a knock-down price house from the council. But I am not by any measure young.

I agree with this. I’ve been a taxpayer for 44 years and have always believed in the social contract and the part I have to play in contributing to it. I’ve never been in receipt of any benefits and haven’t needed to and consider myself fortunate. I’m currently self employed and am always fair and honest in my calculations as I believe in paying what is due. But like many others I feel I’m being asked to pay more and more for less and less and the social contract feels broken. I’m now diverting as much of my earnings as possible into a pension just to reduce my tax liability. I know others who are doing the same, and have several friends planning to leave the country. This situation will get worse, not better, if they keep squeezing those of us in the middle who have worked hard and saved.

Meanwhile King Charles never paid inheritance tax nor will any other Royal.

There is plenty of money sloshing around in Britain. The idea that the country is broke is a lie. The problem is the ongoing and wholesale transfer of public money to the pockets of individuals, and no, they are not taking the land and housing that caused most of that overseas.

There is no social contract any more, not in a country owned by the super rich with laws made for the super rich.

The situation described by @Greenwitchart is already happening and has been happening for some time, as anyone would know if communication and information had not both broken down some time ago or if they came from the lower echelons of Britains incredibly unequal wealth distribution.

This is wrong, as has been pointed out several times on the thread: the state pension is not like a private or occupational pension scheme, where you pay your contributions into a pot and accrue a benefit. It’s just a flow of funds from the working age population to the pension receiving population. Fine and dandy and a decent way of supporting older people who- on the whole- have done their time working and paying or having children and raising the next lot of workers and payers for the previous generations.

but we are hitting the buffers because, as others have pointed out as well, our population has tilted towards an older, longer-living but also sicker, one; with fewer workers having children to support them. And while pensioner poverty has been widespread in the past, on average, pensioners have been better supported and have done better out of state transfers and rising asset prices than younger workers.

so until we get a government prepared to confront this inescapable demographic fact, and make the trade-offs required to incentivise younger workers to save, and have children themselves, and to make housing affordable and childcare available, then we’re stuck. You’d think that a government with a stonking majority could at least persuade their own MPs of the case for change, and get the necessary reforms through parliament. Not seen much evidence of that so far, even though I believe there are competent and thoughtful people in and around the cabinet. Oh well. Fingers crossed.

So sorry that I have outlived my usefulness and will make every effort to cease being a drain on the country asap. I do still pay income tax and council tax but I hear you loud and clear, I am a useless drain on the country now I am receipt of my state pension which I claimed after 52 years of employment. The ageism on this site is breathtaking at times, do the posters who see older people as things who should be got rid of think that this will somehow make them immune from growing old? Just to help you out, neither of my parents claimed the state pension for more than 3 years because they both died shortly after reritement and both had a retirement blighted by ill health. Is that what the OP wishes for everyone as they reach the end of their working life, slog your guts out for around 4 decades and then die?

That absolutely is the issue. But there seems to be little appetite for chasing the billionaires so we’ll have for the pensioners actively protecting them

I am retired and I have some sympathy for means testing the state pension even though I could be worse off. A pensioner who is still a higher rate taxpayer does not need a state top up. The triple lock also has to go as it is unaffordable. All of these are choices which a government has to trade off verses other areas of public spending. I would rather see more spent on health, education and early years support.

People aren't saying that.
But youcan see the vilist things said about asylum seekers, disabled children, the unemployed on here and it's all "we just have to be realistic we can't afford to look after the parasites". As soon as it's pointed out that by far the largest welfare cost is pensions it's "so your saying we outlived our usefulness" sad facing.

If you paid taxes for 52 years it's likely you were born in the 40s-50s. At a time when the income tax paid by adults was much higher. It was something like 90%. This enabled the UK to fight a war, repay the debts from said war, and set up a welfare state and the NHS which benefitted you. Oh, also a lot of that same generation risked their lives in the war so that your generation (and mine) could enjoy the longest period of peace Western Europe has known for 2000 years. Most of them died much sooner than we will.so they didn't get as long to enjoy the fruits of their labour post retirement.

When you started paying tax it would have been about the time that income tax went down with Thatcher and the welfare state was cut back. To fund this council houses etc were sold of. But the economy grew during the 80s and 90s and most people's lives were materially better than their parents. Now you are retired you are likely to live longer than the generations before you. Which is a huge victory for modernity but is also causing the welfare bill to rise. And improvements in health care is causing NHS bills to rise. Of all the problems to have, this would be my favourite. But to make it sustainable either we need to tax the wealthy more. Or we need to adjust expectations re retirement. Instead, you have very vicious sniping about feckless young benefit claimants or refugees causing all the economic woes. And a blind desire to protect the super wealthy at all costs.

I am sure you had all sorts of challenges growing up. But you also benefitted from generations above you making huge sacrifices. It's not fair to also expect the very poorest of the generations below you to make sacrifices to keep the wealthiest in your generation as rich as possible. I don't think cutting the state pension is a good idea. I do think more old age benefits should be means tested. And we need to tax the rich and tax wealth and tax inheritance. If that adversely affects you/people you know it's because you have benefitted massively from this society.

This is not true, NI contributions are inextricably linked to state pension, you need to have paid a specific level or contribution to receive the full state pension

Yes but if you add up the amount of NI contributions most people pay in their lifetime it's less than the full cost of their pension would be. The NI contributions don't go into a seperate pot marked "bitters pension".

Yes, and no.
No, I don't think it should be means tested today.

What needs to happen - is similar to what Australia has done with the Superannuation fund. And what we half heartedly started with Auto-enrollment but nobody has the balls to follow through and complete.

We need a system which legislates adequate contributions into a pension with no option to opt out. Compulsory.
Then, over time, as working people grow their pension pots, you can introduce a means tested benefit which pays out to those with less than a certain amount of income.

This isn't something you can flick a switch on though. The first stage is stopping the ability to opt out of auto-enrolment, making it compulsory from day 1, and increasing the contributions. Then with time you can phase out the state pension as we know it currently.

This. I've paid into it for 30 years. I'll have my full share out.

Did you miss the bit where I said I still pay income tax? I haven't had an easy or privileged life, in fact it has been quite challenging. Every generation faces challenges. When I was young it was mass unemployment, over 3 million at one point. Today it is the horrifc housing crisis. I am as far from wealthy as you can imagine, no cruises for me and endless spending, I I struggle to make ends meet on my state pension and small NHS pension as like many people working or retired my standard of living has been knocked for six by the cost of living crisis. It costs me twice as much to have the heating on for half as long, I all but pass out at the supermarket check out from the shock of how much it costs and my heart goes out to young parents struggling to feed their kids. I do donate to my local food bank because I remember what it was like to do without food so I could feed my child (told you I have not always had it easy). Just out of interest how have I "benefitted massively from this society"? Just to let you know I did not have free univesity education, yes it was free when I was young but very few of us went compared with the numbers today and as a female career choices were nurse, teacher or secretary. Do you not think that I have made any contributions be they fiscal or social? There is no perfect time to be born, no ideal society. The wealthy and the powerful will always do all they can to protect their interests. Anyway not much longer for me to live and in many ways I am thankful

i am retired and I agree. I just hate being seen as a useless burden because I no longer work, it makes me feel as if my life has been for nothing

It's a Ponzi scheme rather than a fund. Current contributions plus government debt pay for those retiring now.

Due to the age structure changes such as means testing are inevitable. It most likely collapses totally at some point.

It's not a fund you can take your share out. What you put in has been spent already on pensioners claiming their pensions. Ponzi scheme. You need to cross your fingers that it lasts long enough for you to benefit from it.

What's that supposed to mean?

I've had my money?

I've worked for my money and paid into the system. Why exactly shouldn't I get a state pension?

I’m with you on that one.
Maybe I sound a bit tinfoil-hat about it, but I can see how the messaging has been drip-fed lately: “You’ve lived your life and should really go now. Free up the space for a deserving young family. Give away your house to someone struggling (don’t expect to get any money for it either) and move into a bedsit — never mind that you paid off your mortgage, paid your taxes, and contributed to NI your whole life. You’re a burden now. Assisted dying is your future, and you must see why.”
People say, “Oh, I see there’ll be no state pension by the time I retire.”
But what’s their plan then? Have they fully embraced the idea of popping their clogs (voluntarily) at 67? Or do they already have a nice cushion and know they won’t need to? It’s simply not possible for anyone in their mid to late 30s or older to start making financial provisions now to cover the complete absence of a state pension