When will people realise that pensioners have paid for their state pension.

[notsafeanymore]

Every time there is a debate about the cost of living pensioners get a bashing.
And some have also paid for a private pension.
It's people who have never worked that should be targeted first.
I'm not on about the disabled. It's people who are benefit cheats and have never worked.

What is this even about? We know they’ve paid for their pension…nobody cares about pensioners getting a state pension lol. It’s literally what it is for

Yup, it's blatantly obvious the numbers don't work, so the sooner we bit the bullet and make changes, the better.

We’re ‘gunning for’ the people who don’t need it. No one has actually earned it. I think it’s appalling that child benefit was means tested before pensions, personally.

My mum worked for 6 years after leaving school and then part time for about 10 years before retiring. My dad never worked after age 35.

Not really. Because that threshold would be lowered and lowered and it would be rendered meaningless. Which is not how it should be.

Yes, amazing how people agree to means test the child benefit, and means test free childcare hours, and effectively means test the tax free personal allowance, but howls of anguish when anyone suggests means testing the state pension at similar thresholds!

Would be interesting to do the same calculations for public sector workers.
The tax payer is also paying their pensions - many of them final salary and retiring mid to late 50s. Young people are supporting them too.

I'm so sorry to hear about your friends. 😢

Rent is paid by the tax payer if you have low savings and income. Even as a pensioner

Agree Govn should prepare people but they should have done that when it was quite obvious birth rates were increasing post war.

Something, it’s worth mentioning, that was actively encouraged.

Over time, it would work as more and more people approach retirement having been paying workplace pensions for most of their working life. Leaving just an equivalent of "pension credit" for those who've made no provision. Over 2 or 3 decades, most workers would have decent workplace pensions and over the same 2 or 3 years, the means testing threshold would have fallen in real terms.

We'll never "fix" the problem short term, we need to be looking at 2/3 decades, but we need to start NOW, and can't keep kicking the problem into the long grass.

New government policy- everyone currently under 40 will not get a state pension unless it is means tested and if you have a private pension, savings or a house you could downsize, you won’t get anything ?
There would be an uproar.

Well my parents couldn't!

There isn't enough social housing because of right to buy. Most of that stock is now owned by private landlords.

But they haven’t all paid for it. My Mum worked till she was 25 in 1974. My dad paid her NI payments for her as she had no intention of going back to work after having children. And she receives full state pension

This is true. It can’t be right.

People would be shocked if they realized how much people get. They should go and play around with the Age Uk benefits calculator for a while. The older people I dealt with in this line of work were actually embarrassed when told the amounts. they got awarded £110 Attendance Allowance then were told it entitled them to £83 a week pension credit and that once pension credit was awarded they would then get all their rent and council tax paid for so about 1k extra a month on top of their state pension and no rent or council tax to pay. This scenario will reduce as time goes on and more people have private pension provision as they will no longer get the pension credit, but it's going to take many many years to reduce the bill.

I agree but we don't have it anymore in Scotland. Do you still have it in England?

I am afraid I disagree with your utopia and that it would work.

Child care was 90% of my wages when DC were small. It was an investment in the future. There were no in work benefits

Governments HAVE been encouraging private pension provision since the 1980s when they introduced private pensions, SERPS (then S2P), then workplace pensions became compulsory for larger employers in 2012 and all employers in 2018.

Trouble is that, like the increase in women's state pension age, too many people can't be bothered to do any research and/or don't show any interest.

I remember a couple of studies/reports back in the 90s about the forthcoming pensions timebomb that were all over the media for weeks/months.

Even today, with compulsory workplace pensions, only around 80% are actively participating in workplace pension schemes. So 20% aren't. No doubt they'll be the "WASPI's" in 2 or 3 decades time who claim they didn't know anything about it!

Personally, I think it should be compulsory for all, employed AND self employed, with no opting out at all.

As proved with SERPS and S2P, far too many people just won't engage with long term planning. I remember being involved in presentations to various workplace staff in the 80s trying to educate them and encourage them to join their employer pension schemes. To me, it was a no brainer, typically, pay in a couple of percent of salary, get a couple of percent knocked off the NIC deductions and the employer chucks in a few percent too. But the take up was stupidly small, even though it "cost" them virtually nothing. No sense in it at all, with most of the staff looking bored and disinterested and waiting for the coffee and biscuits rather than engaging!

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

Where did you get your lack of manners? What's with the "maths"? It's arithmetic.

Fair enough, but what's your alternative suggestion. And I'll give you a clue, it's not "tax the rich"!

I agree with this.

The attitude to a state pension is absolutely wild. People act like it’s some kind of savings pot and that they’re entitled to get their money back. There’s not the same attitude towards other things that NIC pays for. No one says “well, I’ve not seen a GP in 40 years, I haven’t had my money’s worth out of the NHS”!

The proposals to pare back disability benefits are terrifying but somehow this rhetoric has built up that disabled folk are rolling in cash from the state. Disabled people are seen as fair game by a fair proportion of the public - who also seem to believe that it’s easy to get PIP and that everyone is a scammer (usually they have an anecdotal story about a family member/neighbour who they know for a fact got PIP with no medical evidence and is absolutely fine).

Yet it seems to be taboo to suggest that millionaires don’t need £12000 in state pension every year. Or a winter heating allowance. God forbid anyone ever suggests that wealthy pensioners - and I do mean wealthy - forego their state pension.

The state pension should be fiercely protected for pensioners with an income up to - I don’t know, let’s say £200k a year - but above that, just stop it. State pension should be treated like any other benefit or service that’s paid for from NIC. It’s not an “entitlement” and if you’re rich, you don’t need it!

Working from all those who started working in 2018
so theoretically all those born after 2000
This is the age group that will benefit through their entire working lives from employer based private pensions.
So it's not really 2/3 decades from now. It more 2070

So we shouldn’t try to improve things for people in this country, or incentivise the right kinds of behaviours…?

‘it was crap for me, so it should be for everyone else’

What are you on about? Tye current wave of pensioners did not pay for their own pensions, they paid for the pensions of the pensioners at the time they were working.

The reality is, back then, a majority workforce paid for a minority pension base who did not have the lifespan of current pensioners. How is this hard to understand?