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.

Private pensions are hardly a new concept
Otherwise also agree with the first two posters.
It's not a bloody savings account

I saw your response actually and was going to apologise when you replied to me. But manners cost nothing and you don't have any, so I couldn't care less. It was a load of pish anyway.

Have you heard of the Dunning Kruger effect.

I think it was 33% for one year….

I think it was 33% for one year….

I think it was 33% for one year….

I think it was 33% for one year….

I think it was 33% for one year….

I think it was 33% for one year….

I think it was 33% for one year…

Not rude - just to the point. But hey, be as rude as you like.

I will - thanks for the permission. However, I was just stating a fact.

I think everyone needs to stop working against eachother. Yes, the Boomers have had it good. Call it luck.

What I am focusing on (mid 30s) is building a comfortable pension income for myself and maximising my children's chances of success (in the likely absence of any kind of state pension at all) by being frugal and saving what I can. Their lives will be even harder financially than our own.

To clarify, I was in no way trying to criticise boomers for getting free uni; I'm not a boomer myself but I was one of the last to get it free. I think, in general, education is a very wise thing for a country to invest in, and not to strongly discourage - we all agree with this when it comes to primary and secondary school; although I do agree that university isn't the best fit for everybody.

I too despise the way that everybody is pushed to get a degree for jobs that don't really need it. Many employers are like little kids writing their special wish list to Santa, and will ask for qualifications and experience far beyond what the job requires, what the salary remunerates and indeed what the applicant could physically achieve: i.e. it's a little difficult to be 19 and have 12 years of experience, however well you could actually do the job.

It was also a nasty, foolish thing to do, to 'upgrade' all polys to universities. It gave the strong message that polys were inferior and even a shameful thing to have in your CV; when in actual fact, they trained a load of young people extremely well to take key jobs in society that were not necessarily purely academic - and those students should have left them with absolute pride at all the great skills that they had learned and achieved there, making them pivotal members of society.

I'm frankly amazed that nobody in government seems to realise that, if you put huge financial obstacles in the way of young people wanting to grow into their place in adult society and be the best versions of themselves that they can, it will have a clear knock-on effect, including when it comes to pensions.

If young people are starting out at 21 being £50K or more in debt and unable to afford to buy a house or have children until maybe 10, 15 or even 20 years later than previous generations did, we've effectively lost an entire generation of fully functional adults in society who could have been busy earning, paying taxes and keeping the whole pension system ticking over for a lot longer.

Apologies, no idea why that posted so many times!

You’re a perfect example of it!

If young people are starting out at 21 being £50K or more in debt and unable to afford to buy a house or have children until maybe 10, 15 or even 20 years later than previous generations did, we've effectively lost an entire generation of fully functional adults in society who could have been busy earning, paying taxes and keeping the whole pension system ticking over for a lot longer.

Indeed.

exactly

Yes, this is the elephant in the room. Whilst we have a system whereby we're very unlikely to have one party in power for more than 15 years, they will all prioritise what is expedient for them and have no interest in forestalling problems that will otherwise fall to a different party's government and make their rival party look good - however much it helps the general public and society in general.

In fact, it gives them a lot more power if they deliberately don't set good circumstances in place for when they know a future government will be in charge, as then they can criticise the other government for their inevitable failures in handling it and use that as political capital to get back into government themselves.

And

The "Great Wealth Transfer": Because they are wealthier than prior generations and hold significant property and investment portfolios, their eventual passing will trigger the largest generational wealth transfer in history, moving trillions to Millennials and Gen X. 1, 2]

That’s not true. You don’t have your own NI “pot” that you contribute to. You pay NI for the current pensioners. So the current working population are paying fo the current pensioners.

It is not an automatic right - just political parties are too scared to do anything and lose the “grey” vote.

It's not free childcare - they just get some of the tax returned!! Clue is in name - tax free childcare!! It's the only 'benefit' we get - not even entitled to child benefit.

Surely everyone knows that? And knows they have already paid tax on it? Or are you meaning people over pension age who never worked, despite being able to?

The government have been telling everyone to save into private pensions for years. They made it mandatory for workplaces to offer pension schemes quite a few years ago to help mitigate the issue of a dwindling pot of pension funds being available.

Unfortunately a lot of people thought they knew better and opted out.

But also the workplace pension scheme was too little too late.

I'm frankly amazed that nobody in government seems to realise that, if you put huge financial obstacles in the way of young people wanting to grow into their place in adult society and be the best versions of themselves that they can, it will have a clear knock-on effect, including when it comes to pensions.

They don't seem to care, so long as they can find another way to extract more tax. They've made it more expensive to employ people who haven't been to university, while simultaneously making it harder for those who did go to university to get by on what they earn.