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.

The fact of the matter is the younger generations are, and will continue to overpay their dues with absolutely nothing in return.

Yep

I wonder if it will be suggested that the retirement age for state pension be abolished and replaced with a medical retirement. Some people are fit and well at 80 and some are at death's door at 60 so maybe some government at some point will put feelers out about the possibility of changing the system so that you retire at whatever age if you have a private pension and are self supporting but you only get the state retirement if you are assessed as medically unfit to work as a result of old age.

Exactly. I am going to make the wild assumption that if you were not expecting to make back more than the £3k you paid in then you would not have made the top up @ByQuaintAzureWasp- I know so many people nearing pension age who are making these tiny payments to secure themselves a full state pension despite having only worked for 20/25 years. It’s quite clearly a nice way to work the system.

1. they haven't, there is no individual pot, it's not a savings account
2. even if they had, why must the pension go up as the triple lock when wages and other benefits do not?
3. It's time to means test the pension

I'm mid 40s and honestly all sorts of stuff could have happened by the tike I retire. The country will probably be too hot for older people and we'll be offered discounts to leave and live in colder countries.

The people drawing pensions now did exactly that.

@Scotiasdarling what are you basing this on? feels?

Not nearly as many of the boomer generation went to Uni as do these days. So the cost to the tax payer was much less than it would be now. In the 1970’s university participation was only 15%. A university education was considered elite, not mainstream.

To date, approximately 36%of UK 18 year-olds go to university straight out of school and if you add in the proportion of young people entering higher education via expanded access, that figure reaches 50%. By the ages of 25–29, over 52% of people hold a degree or tertiary-level qualification.

I see lots of comparisons on MN with the housing markets now and then. But much of it is proportionate to its time. When we bought a modest 2 bed terraced house (our first) in 1980, the price was £16000. We were refused a mortgage by two banks/building societies on the basis of our combined income - which was then around £400 a month. Eventually we were required to provide a 15% deposit and the mortgage rate was 15%. Our mortgage was £200 a month - fully half our take home pay and we struggled.

The average take home pay now is £2300 per month, giving a couple on similar salaries £4600. I’m not saying it was easy, but the notion that all boomers had home ownership handed to them on a plate is nonsense.

Hmm, I am sure the people coming up to retirement age who have done physical jobs will still be declared fit for work and expected to retrain.
Because there is an abundance of WFH jobs and there is no ageism in recruiting at all 🙄

With Scottish Life (top of the table, I looked at), 200k at age 65 will buy you 11.4k / yr for life, growing at RPI. So that's a bit less money, and it's not as good as the triple lock, but it's not all that far off

This is possibly the stupidest thing I have ever seen on mumsnet. Don't you know that salaries were lower, people still had large mortgages compared with their income. Do you think that people had small mortgages but that they were earning the same as they are today? I hope you do not work as a teacher or in finance.

There's an error in your thread title. Allow me to correct it. Pensioners have not paid for their state pension. What they paid for while they were working was the state pensions of the older generations, the people who were claiming state at the time.

Someone on £125,000 doesn't get free childcare

the funded 15 hours are universal.

Our pensions are very low amongst developed countries.

Bring public sector pension contributions in line with private sector schemes and that would solve the problem overnight and would leave plenty spare for other worthy causes.

Alternatively...
Bring private sector pension contributions in line with public sector schemes and that would solve the problem overnight and would leave plenty spare for other worthy causes.

There is no pot of money set aside to pay for state pensions. Instead, the state pensions paid to current retirees are financed directly by current taxation (including income tax, national insurance & VAT) paid by the current tax payers.
National insurance is an income-based and employer contribution tax. It isnt ringfenced in any way.
When you pay tax (including NI) there are no guarantees about what you will 'get back' or what level pension you will receive. Goverments change things. Child benefit rules change, tuition fee rules change, disability benefit rules change, tax credit/UC rules change .....
Goverments can change pension rates. It is arguable whether they should, but they can.

What level of income/savings do you think you should be allowed to have to get the pension you thought you were getting?

British retirees receive roughly 22% of their average pre-retirement earnings from the state, which is the lowest rate among the G7 nations and below the OECD average of around 61%

@ThreadGuardDog

Not nearly as many of the boomer generation went to Uni as do these days. So the cost to the tax payer was much less than it would be now. In the 1970’s university participation was only 15%. A university education was considered elite, not mainstream.

But that's society/employers/government who've changed that. Not today's youngsters who, by and large, are forced to go to Uni if they want a decent job. Jobs that previously were accessible by just attaining the right number of "passes" at O or A level, even professional roles. It's governments who scrapped polys and turned them into Unis, it's governments who scrapped the adult education system and converted colleges into 16-18 year old places. Employers have changed minimum job requirements to require a degree whereas O or A levels was adequate in the past. Governments who've turned lots of PS jobs into graduate jobs such as police officers, nurses, social workers, etc. People need to stop making out that it's students themselves driving the increase in university places - it's the other way around, students are sucked into Unis because that's what the employment world has decreed!

@Scotiasdarling I think you need to re read your response for the most stupid thing ever posted on MNs!

Salary to mortgage income ratio is higher today

“From the 1970s through the 1990s, the average UK home typically cost about 3 to 4 times the average annual salary.”

“Today: The average property sits at roughly 7.5 to 9 times the average earnings,”

6% interest rates are constraining household incomes due to the above.

Are you employed?

Agree. Hence Labours’ very narrow definition of ‘the working man’. That only applies to those who live from pay cheque to pay cheque, and are vulnerable to economic instability.

It isnt the older generations fault, but it inarguable that on average the ratio of housing costs to earnings has risen. It is not the case that earnings and housing costs have grown at the same rate.

It is one of the most significant factors thst influence the financial situation of younger people.

I just had to ignore that. This is the poster that says I don't understand basic arithmetic which they call "Maths".

I worked in France for fifteen years & receive a French pension or rather pensions as there are four of them. I was in a well paid job & two of the pensions are earnings related. My French pensions for fifteen years work amount to double my UK state pension.

I don’t think there’s any other way the government could have funded the significant expansion of state pensions in the immediate aftermath of WW2. The 1980s, when the baby boom generation made up the majority of the workforce, with relatively small cohorts of both pensioners and children to support, is perhaps another matter.

When pensioners went to university only 8% of the school leaving population went. Even if they all got grants, which they didn't, even middle class families had to pay what was known as a parental contribution, the sums involved would have been miniscule. Now that 50% or whatever it is want to go to university it's perfectly obvious that it has to be funded by debt. Going to university is a choice, and for a great many students not a sensible one.