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..

No, it’s an eligibility threshold, still not a pot with my name on it. I have paid ‘my full 35 years’ and will therefore qualify in 7/8 years time for ‘my full state pension’. But it’s likely that, in the interim, the rules on what kind of income is liable for NI will change. I will therefore have paid more than 35 years’ contributions by the time the relevant birthday rolls around, but I am willing to bet all the money in my NI pot versus all the money in your actual pension pot that I won’t be paid any more as a result of my contributions. Because it’s not a pot!

I am 48 and whilst I suspect your generation will get their share I doubt ours will.

But it’s not a discussion about an individual’s merits or rights, or even that of an entire generation. It’s a plea, really, to democratically elected governments to hunker down and try to make effective policy so that the social contract, the intergenerational contract, can evolve and persist in the face of falling fertility rates and rising age-dependency ratios.

I’m not sure the government reads Mumsnet, to be honest.
When I was a little girl and even as a young adult (I’m 46 now), I used to think people in power genuinely knew what they were doing and how to run the country well. By my 30s, that belief had already started to crumble.
There must be a system that can work without essentially culling off the older generation. But my degree isn’t in economics, so I can’t really speculate much on how that would look.
IMO, the current pensioners (and probably those who are about to retire soon) will not lose the state pension. So there’s no real need to panic, even though I completely understand why some of the posters here are worried.

That said, I’m honestly at a loss about what me and DH can do now to avoid ending up on the cull list in 20 years’ time, if it ever comes to that.

Yes I think it will eventually be means tested but with quite a high bar, so middle earners don't lose out. Private pensions are commonplace now and investment is encouraged, it won't happen just yet though.

Perhaps we should stop all the pensioners who are living abroad receiving the UK state pension

Well that will help the NHS and social care budgets, when they move back to the UK because they can't afford to live abroad without the oension they earned and planned for😂

To be fair, if you take the average income today of £37k, assume NI remains at 8% and that you work 45 years (from 22 to 67) and that it grows in line with a global index fund averag return of 7.2% you’d have somewhere in the region of £1 million if you never had a payrise.

If inflation averaged 2.2% over the same period, that’s a real return of 5% and just under £500k in todays money. Assume a third for education, a third for healthcare and a third for pensions, and that £170k for your pension. At a 6% drawdown you’ve run out of money by the time you’re 88ish, and had an inflation linked £10k or so a year. Not that far off the state pension… particularly as that ignores employés NI, which is roughly double what the employee pays now. So I wouldn’t necessarily fall for the ‘ you haven’t contributed enough’ rhetoric….

source, google AI…not checked in excel as on a plane!

But that’s because the amount we are also spending on benefits and SEND etc has exploded!

Why is our NHS one of the largest employers in the world? It is inefficient and has far too many layers of management. Are brits sicker than the rest of the world? Do we pay for far more treatments than anyone else?

We also need to put a stop to those who claim child benefit but children may live overseas. Far too many scams.

surely you are kidding OP leave the pension the fuck alone

Haven't we had lots of these threads before, usually started by some disgruntled younger person

In a number of countries they are already outside the triple lock.

I know this
however the actual description of NI states that is what it is for. I know it doesn’t sit in a little pot for me, but it is still described as below

You pay National Insurance contributions to qualify for certain benefits and the State Pension.

How much would it cost to means test it? It would be a nightmare to administer.

It's not that I don't think retired people have contributed enough. How much is enough anyway? If you earn less than average your NI wouldn't come to the amount you mentioned. But lots of people earning below average do very important jobs society needs. And the global index.fund is very dependant on those people.

It's more the rhetoric that "I contributed and everyone else is scrounging". What if you fall ill at 60 having worked up till then? Do you try to take unemployment benefit (worthless, working age benefit scroungers) or should you be allowed to take the pension early with the understanding that at 82 you have had it all. Or if you live past 88 is that it, you had all your money?
And if someone at the age of 60 who falls ill through no fault of their own is still deserving, what about a 30 year old who falls ill. What's the cut of where we say this person deserves/doesn't deserve it.

A lot of people are really angry at the idea vast.sums are being wasted on benefits for children living overseas, or treating foreigners, or people who can't be bothered to work. It's a lie. While there is probably dishonesty it's a tiny proportion of the actual expenses. All of the "record welfare bill" headlines in the Mail include pension costs because they make up the bill of costs. And the bulk of NHS costs. But if you point that out people get upset because "I contributed".

A 67 year old today would have grown up in the 50s when there was more availability of council houses etc. They didn't pay for it because they were children. Generations above them paid in some cases 70-90% income tax to fund this support network they benefitted from. When they were old enough to earn money, Thatcher came in and income tax got a lot less. But as a result subsequent generations got less in terms of council housing etc and you get angry articles in the Mail about housing benefit bills and there's a sense that young people didn't earn it. Or that the system must be failing because of everyone else taking the piss. When really it's a result of privatisation. I'ts true, many younger people haven't paid enough into the system yet. But when the average retiree was young and hadn't paid into the system they benefitted from the fact that other people older than them had.

And no matter how much you contributed to a private pension or to NI, the only reason it would grow (you quoted the global index fund average return) is because of other people working. And some of those other people might even claim housing benefit/need to take sickness. Just as currently retired people worked to enable the generations above them to be retired and also benefited from the support network in place.

Smashing the system up for younger generations because "it's not fair" or to enable a sense of Daily Mail inspired grievance will.ultimately backfire on those drawing pensions.

Triple lock should be an average first
That would ease some of the financial pressure

The financial strain is now, with a large boomer retired generation and smaller workforce.
A workforce with huge housing costs

As the boomers die off the next cohort of pension receivers is much smaller so the amount paid out will fall proportionally.

There is no need to remove the state pension or make it means tested, it just has to be tweeted to be a slightly smaller bill.

All parties will be asked before the next election “will you keep the triple lock”. If they say no it’s political suicide unless the younger generations get out and vote. Reform come across as they will say what they want people to hear to get into power then say “we couldn’t see the figures I am going to do this instead”

I dont think its as easy as that gen z is smaller than the millenials. There are more millenials than boomers. The number of pensioners is meant to keep growing until 2075 or something and the worker to pensioners reduce.

So its sort of a now problem, and the foreseeable future problem.

I think the difference in size between boomers and younger generations is a specific issue. They are boomers because they were part of a literal baby boom. Over time it's a bulge that's moved up. However, after that as you say the issues with aging population will continue. It's not really a birth rate issue or at least not just. Even if we had children above "replacement level" the fact that people are living longer means there are more older people. And that will continue. In fact a big baby boom now would cause issues as there would then be a large cohort of people above working age AND a cohort of people below it. It's why Africa isn't having a big demographic benefit from it's population being so young - a lot of countries have the same care burden as western countries just at the opposite end. Whereas countries like India which have had a declining birth rate over the last few years are the ones with a really large potential workforce. Their "boomers" are in their twenties and thirties.

It's not as cataclysmic as some people make out. But aging societies will have different needs and we need to make peace with the fact welfare bills will likely rise year on year without freaking out over news headlines. And also find a way to sort out the housing market and growing wealth gaps. And support the younger generation and children because in a sense if there are less children being born it's more important they are supported to grow into productive adults. Which means early intervention health care, social care, good education, decent housing, decent food.

I think all the posts focussing on pensions are missing the point.

Pensions are only unaffordable if the total spent on pensions is less than the total tax take. Otherwise, it's a question of the priorities for public spending.

We need a sensible discussion on priorities and another, separate discussion on what we consider a reasonable tax burden. Then we need to start thinking about how far down the priorities list the tax take will stretch. Without that, focussing attention on one specific area of expenditure just plays to people's entrenched opinions and encourages division.

Sad but pertinent.
I think the system is predicated on a certain number of people dying before they reach qualifying age and can claim.

Agree

Yep, I'm starting to wonder if I'm foolish for making extra pension payments.