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.

@SomeGarlic We already know we have a big problem with the benefits budget and it’s gobbling up taxation. Benefits includes the pension in government spending. We don’t live within our means. We borrow a lot at vast expense!

Cool, so they have assests they can sell and live somewhere cheaper and fubd themselves, instead of drawing valuble resources from everyone else.

I live where the pension is means-tested, and when you sell up to move somewhere cheaper, the money you make is deducted from your pension.

Oh, I should have said that in addition to savings and pensions, you have to declare the value of your car, caravan, artwork, etc. when applying for the pension.

Well, yeah, but those are people who could manage to put something by and choose not to, and that's not the sector I'm talking about.

I also think we need to get rid of the thought that everyone should eventually get out everything they paid in, which is a mindset some pensioners have. Most of today’s cohort will take out far MORE than they ever paid in, not just through pensions but NHS, public services, and if they had children the state will have paid for their education and healthcare too.

But a civilised society works by some people having to pay in more than they will ever take out, if it didn’t then those who can’t pay in anything (like the disabled) would be unsupported.

They were relatively common in banks and petroleum companies if you joined before around 1995. They then became contributory, then stopped altogether. No new entrants to the scheme from mid 90s, all were on DC from then.
Of course there were also rules disadvantaging female and PT workers so few women have such perks.

I’m the same
however
When we started paying into private pensions they were not protected when moving jobs.

For me One practice did not have to take on the pension from another when I moved and they didn’t so I always had to take on the pension provided by the new firm

So 5 private pensions down the line. None I was able to transfer over and none were taken on by new employers
3 are now lost completely in management fees
Due to relatively recent Govn intervention I was able to transfer the other two ( recent and tiny pots ) to my current one but still at a heavy financial loss

Then
Let’s not forget
There have been no protections on private pensions. I could retire in a crash and have nothing

Then There’s Serps. I’m many years away from retiring but I have no idea if I’ll have lost out by opting out. It’s certainly not the advice I was given, quite the opposite My husband just retired and he lost out despite doing exactly what the Govn at the time advised people to do

So just because we were told to put money into a private pension and it’s our own fault if we didn’t isn’t
the full story
Unless we work for the Govn we have no guarantees we’ll get a penny extra

Some will be in a position to downsize. Others will not. In many cases, it is not a sensible suggestion to move far away from their area they live in, as this will cut them off from social and family support.

Even leaving aside the lack of compassion in such a suggestion, it isn’t necessarily a financially savvy one either, as isolated elderly people suffer a much higher rate of health issues, that cost the state money to treat.

We’ve been told for over a hundred years that if we pay our NI, we get our pension. Any changes need to be very carefully thought through, or the consequences will be much higher than you seem to think.

Essentially
peoples financial planning in retirement has always factored in the state pension
Because everyones been told they will get it

Unless the Govn tell working people early in their working lives not to factor it in Nothing can change
Its the main reason removing or means testing it has never happened

I completely agree. As somebody said upthread, you can't declare that you've paid in enough to last until you're 80, and so you've been 'robbed' by the government if you die significantly younger than that; whilst also fully expecting that, should you live until you're 100, you should continue to receive a pension for which you haven't paid in anything for another 20 years.

Can i just point out that, although pps are keenly pointing out that pensioners probably have not paid in as much as they are getting out, they are pretty much the only cohort of benefits claimants that have to have paid anything in to get something out.
I never understand the largesse on MN towards UC claimants and the derision towards pensioners.

In 8 years time when I retire, assuming I’m still alive and fit and well, I’ll have been paying for other people’s pensions for 50 years. Why is it unreasonable for other people to then pay for mine? I know I haven’t technically paid into my own pot, but I’ll have been making contributions to the pot for half a century.

Exactly!!

Yes, the difficulty is definitely with the fact that it's something that people want to have guaranteed, but which will often not kick in until the distant future - often at a point where the members of the government who promised it will not just be out of power but many of them will likely be dead themselves.

If Starmer announced tomorrow that the basic rate of income tax is going to drop to 1%, council tax will be abolished and hamsters will be required to pay inheritance tax - all effective from the beginning of the 2070 tax year - everybody would scoff and see just how ridiculous it would be, and he'd be a laughing stock until the day he died and probably long after that; but when it comes to the state pension, that's exactly what people demand, and don't see any potential problem whatsoever with their being able to firmly expect and rely on it.

Indeed. All my financial planning has taken this into account.

Everyone gets free eye tests

No they don't. It's actually less than half the population who are entitled to free eye tests.

It isn’t unreasonable at all. The issue is that the plunging birth rates mean there aren’t enough young people to pay our pensions for the amount of years we are likely to live.

Unless we start taxing corporations effectively etc

Its not the fault of today's pensioners that the welfare state was set up as a ponzi system. When you have done your 40 plus years of work and taxes then it is natural to feel that you have paid your share into the community pot. Regardless of which pot it actually went into.

Source? Plus what about the 75% who aren’t?

Until a time machine is invented, it simply isn’t feasible to expect to change the goalposts radically for people who are within at least 25 years of retiring (probably longer, realistically). Retirement planning and saving into a private pension are long-term endeavours that take decades to come to fruition.

If you’re near retirement, you just don’t have the time to course-correct. You can only change expectations for the young, as they have time to factor the change in to their decisions.

And what if your workplace didn’t have a pension to pay into?

although pps are keenly pointing out that pensioners probably have not paid in as much as they are getting out,

probably?

Now employers have to offer a pension scheme with employee and employer contributions but previously there was nothing to stop individuals setting up a private pension