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..

It probably needs to be means tested and probably will be.
But those thinking (hoping) it will effect older people or current pensioners are wrong.
It would have to be rolled out over the next 20 years, like the increase in pension ages have been. And it wouldn't be applicable to existing pensioners just as the two child benefit cap wasn't applicable to existing children.

It would have to be rolled out over the next 20 years

But the economy is up the shitter now, we don't have 20 years to wait.

The gains wouldn't be as big as you think: They already claw back quite a lot in tax.

• £100k iin pension income + £12k state pension = £32,232 paid in tax
• £100k in pension income = £27,432 paid in tax

So the net gain to the state in not paying pension in this example isn't £12k but quite a bit less ( I did the maths and got it wrong )

Personally I think everyone should continue to pay national insurance all their lives. Paying til 67 isn't long enough. Everyone needs to continue paying in to benefit NHS. This provides some kind of funding for increasing longevity

I also think it's worth pointing out that the wealthy pensioners pay their own nursing home fees. My father pays £70k a year and rising from his own pocket for his dementia care. If he hadn't spent his life driving clapped out old cars, wearing cheap clothes and rarely going on holiday, you'd all be paying for that now.

This. Same.

Lots of people spend all their money and not save. Why should I go without to fund others. Middle man in UK is getting stuffed.

So by not paying NI you would also opt out of the NHS, state education, all other benefits etc?

Personally I think everyone should continue to pay national insurance all their lives. Paying til 67 isn't long enough. Everyone needs to continue paying in to benefit NHS. This provides some kind of funding for increasing longevity

I don't understand why you stop paying it at a certain age if still working.

I also think it's worth pointing out that the wealthy pensioners pay their own nursing home fees. My father pays £70k a year and rising from his own pocket for his dementia care.

The majority do not go into care homes though. Care in the home is a huge element & house value is not included in that calculation which is something I think will have to change.

So you would rather a £12k state pension and a lifetime of poverty, rather than a good quality of life due to high wages and a higher private pension?

Then we have to look at what we can cut now. Tax relief on personal pensions costs around £50 billion, most of which goes to the higher paid. Savings to be had there. There’s around £750 billion sheltered in ISAs - let’s assume that’s a mix of cash and equities, and that just the interest / dividend return is 4%. There’s £30 billion on which no income tax is collected. We could probably cap that. Public sector pensions cost the government around £60 billion a year

Saving 20% on each of those would generate around £30 billion a year I reckon ;)

we can’t afford it because a much lower percentage of people are actually working.

yep there it is ... In black and white.
And precisely why I am against assisted dying. Your viewpoint is disgusting frankly.

Means testing discourages saving and private pensions amongst mid earners. Absolutely no point in saving if you will go into retirement worse off - may as well spend it on takeaways and holidays and take the benefits. When they tried to get rid of winter fuel allowance every sad faced pensioner in the land was giving an interview about how they were going to freeze to death despite “working hard their whole lives” - if they have worked hard then where is their full state pension, private pension and savings? In the pubs and chip shops, that’s where - and that’s where mine will be if my savings mean I can’t get the same pension as the feckless.
If you have 2 people earning £35k a year - one puts £5k a year into a pension their whole working life, the other has a £2k holiday every year, spends £20 every Friday in the pub, £30 a week on takeaway, and £40 a month getting their nails done, why exactly should the second one get a state pension and the first one not?

Most people will have very little saved as a result of auto enrolment.

When the state pension was introduced it was means tested and life expectancy was about 2 years after someone started claiming. It is just unaffordable now. There will have to be means testing at some point.

So you would rather a £12k state pension and a lifetime of poverty, rather than a good quality of life due to high wages and a higher private pension?

Apparently so!

I'm happy to get my standard state pension, the same as everyone else.

Or I'm happy to get out what I've put in - ie 50 years work, 46 years full time tax & NI, 36 of those years at higher rate, while raising my child alone & without any support. I don't mind. You choose !

The second option would leave an awful lot of people looking at inadequate pensions. All those mums who went part time or stayed at home while their dcs are small. But that would be their problem, right?

Or I'm happy to get out what I've put in - ie 50 years work, 46 years full time tax & NI, 36 of those years at higher rate, while raising my child alone & without any support. I don't mind. You choose !

After your education, healthcare, defence etc costs are deducted you probably won't be getting much back.

I've just worked out that I've paid a little over £650k in PAYE & NI since I started (at today's rates).

A pension pot of £300,000 will generate £12k (state pension) assuming an average interest rate of 4%.

So that leaves £350k of my contributions to pay for my education, NHS costs for my one birth and my one short treatment for cancer. Plus childhood dentristry, my use of the roads, street lights, libraries, defence etc.

Of course that doesn't include the council tax I have paid for 38 years, or the taxes on alcohol, insurance, petrol, or VAT on almost everything I've bought, ever.

I'm still happy to only get out what I've put in if that's the system everyone wants. It does seem rather selfish though.

You are an anomaly though, if everybody earned 6 figs for decades & paid that amount of tax then we wouldn't be in this situation would we.

NHS costs for my one birth and my one short treatment for cancer.

Surely you will be using it in the future though?

Well, quite!

The point is I don't mind supporting others. That's the social contract I made with my govt when I became an adult and I expect it to be honoured.

I object to being told I'm a selfish freeloading boomer who shouldn't be entitled to a pension at all. If that happens before I retire (another few years yet) I shall stop work, stop paying any tax or NI at all and put my feet up. Bugger the exchequer.

We need to raise the NI requirement for a full state pension, from 35 years to 40 or possibly 45 years. Life expectancy allows it, and there is absolutely no reason why not.

And we need to stop the nonsense of people only accepting a certain number of hours work because it will affect their benefits. A state system that discourages work is counter productive and benefits no-one.

Yes, and since I have a small private pension, I will continue to pay income tax in coming years (as well as VAT and taxes on fuel & insurance) so will continue to contribute to my costs.

Problem is, this hugely penalises mums (and it will mostly be women) who didn't fully contribute if part time for kids.

The gender pensions gap is huge.

Agreed. Steal people's life savings then encourage them to kill themselves. WTF?!? Welcome to Socialist Britain.

Why should my work fund you at all, @wishedforchild2016 ?

Stop all working age benefits and social care. The money I pay in is more than enough to cover my share of state services I actually have access to and my own state pension. There's sctually plenty of tax I'm already paying in left over after covering my costs to the state But I don't want any of it going to people who want to steal my money and encourage me to kill myself.

Unfortunately so many people don’t have the same values as your family.
Gordon Brown generated the idea of ‘entitlement’ and making benefits seem respectable by calling them ‘tax credits’ and you only have to see on here whenever anyone is thinking of leaving their partner they are urged to look at what they are ‘entitled’ to.

Not sure why you think pensions are the biggest single outlay OP. Pensions are less than half of Welfare spending, and the NHS is much higher.

The state currently funds out of our taxes:
£242 billion on health
£162 billion on welfare for working-age people and children (Universal Credit, disability benefits (DLA, PIP), and housing benefits for working-age households and children.)
£138 billion on the state pension

Almost all paid for by the people you want to take state pension away from. Why on earth should they pay for things they don't get?

National Insurance was meant to be an insurance scheme where people contributed part of their pay as insurance against temporarily being unable to work, and also saved money for their own old age.

The current tax and benefit system is a travesty. It's become entirely about redistribution, rather than being a way for the state to help people to be responsible for their own lives by self-insuring across the working age population to even out bad luck.