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.

Really !

I worked full time raised 5 children and payed all my contributions. I also saved and paid into a private pension

if it’s means tested I wouldn’t get the state pension, but I worked and paid for it, how is that fair just because I also saved and paid a private pension, I’m doing ok, not wealthy but ok, it means I can help my children who are struggling with the col and pay for my own needs.

Add in a few visionaries and some highly capable executors, and you'd have the dream team!

Sadly, I think if you put all the parties in a room and tried to pick the best 12 people, I think you'd still be scraping the barrel before you'd used the fingers on one hand.

Because I happen to have been there and done that. And so did all my friends. Who do you think paid for our childcare? Pixies? The taxpayer certainly didn't.

Totally agree about this- many jobs requiring it for the initial filter on what is a fairly basic starter admin job -

Most private pensions are not guaranteed. Their value can go up or down, perform poorly or even fail altogether.

There needs to be an apolitical, independent body set up asap to sort this out. My opinion is that the change should be aimed at 16-yr olds (same as no cigarettes, no SM) so they have all their working lives to sort out their retirement funds with no big shocks. (I know many will have already suggested this but it's too hot to read 11 pages🥵)

@Scotiasdarling so you’re talking about yourself & your friends. Why are you extrapolating that to millions of people?

Why do we have this every 5 minutes? How about suggestions as to what should change for today's pensioners?
We don't all have houses worth millions. We also have living expenses, people think we don't but I have to pay for electricity, gas and petrol the same as working people but I have less to do that with. And don't bother saying I should have paid into private pensions, I do have one very small one because working 4 part time jobs at minimum wage, having an ill dh and 3 kids life got in the way.
Fucks me off no end that we are expected to just shrivel up and not be a burden after contributing, not just financially for 50 years.

@NorthXNorthWest and this is why it’s so depressing. Things won’t change & we are just on a downward spiral.

Lots of people who retired at 60 do have higher pensions because of graduated pensions, SERPS or S2P. I've got clients with state pensions of £15k or more, who retired several years ago. Yes, the "basic" may have been less than £12k, but lots of people were being topped up by earnings related state pension enhancements. Some reports suggest that 40-50% of pensioners receive earnings related enhancements to state pensions.

Of course, younger people won't get the earnings related pension entitlements they were previously entitled to, now that the new state pension rules come into force.

Yet another way in which younger people don't get the same as the older ones before them.

Private pensions came in during the 80s - 40 years ago!

Workplace pensions came in around 15 years ago!

Workplace pension schemes are now obligatory. Yet, still a far too high proportion of workers have opted out!

It needs to be compulsory for all with NO option to opt out and needs to be extended to include self employed and other "non workers" such as landlords, to force them to make provision for themselves. Nothing else will solve the problem for the next generations.

They are, in fact, the wealthiest generation in the history of mankind.

That doesn't mean its not possible the government might think about it at some point.

Tbh nothing would surprise me.

I understand why it is a problem but it has never, to my knowledge, been made adequately clear. If you go onto the government website to check your NI contributions record it is made pretty clear that if you don't pay enough years you won't get a full pension, but if you do you will. Yes, it says your forecast is not a guarantee but it very much gives the impression that if you paid your NI you will get a state pension. Getting rid of the triple lock or whatever seems to be unavoidable because pensions are unaffordable, but I have heard people suggesting means testing and I would hugely object to that, because I deliberately paid my contributions in order to get the full state pension.

Is this supposed to sound high or something? Basic rate for graduates is essentially 29%.

Is this aimed at me? Odd. I'm well aware of private/work-place pensions but the ability to opt out needs to be removed. But as no political party will want to alienate a huge swathe of voters, any radical changes need to be introduced so far in the future....dyk, I can't be arsed.* *

I don't get it. It's £12500 a year after most people have worked for years. Less than many first World countries. The so called triple lock is just making sure that it rises each year and doesn't get left behind.
It's not a race to the bottom. Yes some of us will have saved as well but that is on the assumption that we will get that £12500 a year.

Yes so have I and also we are now working to 67 so I would be fed up whereas my dm retired at 60

This is about the third time I have had to explain this on mumsnet, but as people still don't get it I'll do it again.

The high price of houses is not a conspiracy or some kind of Boomer plot. Houses do, and always have done, cost what people will pay for them. Just because some people can't afford them does not mean that no-one can.

In the 1970's only one income was taken into account for a mortgage. People could buy a house on one salary because that was all a bank would lend. So houses cost on average 3 times the average salary. This would nearly always be the male partner in a couple's salary because it was perfectly legal to pay women less than men. So in 1980 the average salary was around £8000, and the average house cost £23,000. But women worked and wanted their salaries to count towards a mortgage, and people wanted bigger houses. So banks were persuaded to lend a multiple of two salaries. For a short while they were happy, but then the inevitable happened. Because people could now get bigger mortgages they borrowed more and paid more for houses. They could afford to. But the outcome was that when some people were willing to use a multiple of two incomes to support a mortgage then everyone had to do it too. No sane house seller then or now would sell a house for half as much as he could get from someone else. So now it takes two salaries to buy a house, a direct result of one part of female equality. Banks have also increased the salary multiple that they will lend because interest rates are low. We fixed our first mortgage at 10% because we just couldn't afford more than that, and felt smug when rates hit 15%. So in 2025 the average salary was £37,000 and the average house was £280,000, about 3.75 times two average salaries.

To sum up, when most people get a mortgage based on two salaries houses cost a multiple of two salaries. Interest rates are much lower now, and mortgage terms can be much longer which helps with repayments.

I should add that parents gifting large deposits only exacerbates this problem.

The current pensioners would have paid for the previous set of pensioners pensions. Current working people are paying for today's pensioners and the sums don't quite add up so cuts may need to be made.

At this rate I'll be working until I'm 70 until I can claim a pension and I'm 48 now.

Also there's plenty of current pensioners (mainly women) who left work in their 20's to raise children and haven't paid much tax over their lifetime? When I was a child there were lots of SAHM's - a lot more than nowadays. Who is paying for their pension? The current work force is.

It needs to be compulsory for all with NO option to opt out and needs to be extended to include self employed and other "non workers" such as landlords, to force them to make provision for themselves. Nothing else will solve the problem for the next generations

The problem is that some cannot afford it with rental costs, student loans, etc.

Already answered- read the thread.

It was always a Ponzi scheme, but worked as long as most people only lived c. 5 years after retirement. I have already lived 15 years beyond retirement and many women will live far longer - and women now take an equal pension when the original scheme assumed they were married and paid the married woman's stamp (a lower rate with a much smaller pension) and would rely on their husband's pension and not live much beyond 80 and be very poor (as many were in the 60s and 70s). The problem was that after WWII there was no money and what there was had to be paid to the US for lease-lend (whereas e.g. Russia was never asked for a penny by the UK for the support given). Bankruptcy was looming but so was a possible revolution since most of the male population had been under arms and knew how to fight and there was an expectation that this time the ruling class would keep their promise and allow most people to have a decent life for a change. So the pension scheme paid for the pensions being paid and nothing was put aside. Any sensible nation would have set up a sovereign wealth fund in the 80s (as Norway did) when North Sea Oil came on stream but we had Thatcher who did not believe in setting up national systems to benefit all in that way, prefering to rely and promote individual provision. This last worked but the state pension was still what many relied on and no means of funding it was settled on. We could set up a system now - it would be somewhat painful but future generations would thank us. Unfortunately we now live in a managerialist neo-liberal technocracy with no idea how to sort things out rather than just manage them.

This is about the third time I have had to explain this on mumsnet, but as people still don't get it I'll do it again.

Lol, you are the one not getting it, you can give up trying to educate us.

This is why anyone over 22 was auto enrolled in a company pension.

Its no longer ‘pay your stamp get your pension’.

As a millennial I’m pretty sure my generation won’t get a state pension hence auto forcing us into private pensions.