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.

How are people on benefits paying for pensions?
Maths not mathing there !

You will not get a state pension only if you all talk yourselves out of having one.

This exactly - most pensioners of today haven't paid in anything near what they will receive in benefits.

Pensions are the biggest portion of the welfare bill so it is reasonable to discuss whether the current model is sustainable and fair across generations. It's not about blame, unfortunately it seems impossible to have a rational discussion about pensioner benefits though as evidenced by the winter fuel allowance debacle.

Talk me in to how it is possible with the population trending as it is?!

Life expectancy when the state pension was first introduced meant that most people were retired for only a few years before they died. Not only is that no longer the case, but the population pyramid is no longer a pyramid. It is not sustainable; there are a number of options, but they don't include pretending people have "paid in" as if that solves the maths.
Options are massive population growth, massive economic growth (not just GDP growth, which is a bit of a mirage), crashing life expectancy, later retirement or far greater personal pension savings.

I do agree that people have been lied to over generations and the facts have been misrepresented, so you can't blame them for assuming it was the actual case.

The same has happened historically whereby people paying road tax/VED were broadly led to understand that it was to pay for well-maintained roads and other facilities specifically based around motoring, whereas in actual fact it all just goes into the one same government pot.

I suppose it's in the nature of politics that governments of all political colours and all generations know what tugs on the nation's heartstrings and what doesn't. How often is the idea of an extra tax rise mooted 'to go to the NHS'? And how often do they suggest that we should pay a bit more to go towards abortive HS2 costs and bureaucratic bloat?!

Obviously people on here will be happy not getting a pension. Or like my parents die before they ever get one.

It is not fair when it is clear there are so many other areas to tackle first.

well the government certainly managed it when removing pensions from the 50s born women. The state pension is hardly generous. And yet there is always money available for wars, ludicrous rail projects and diversity training, for example.

You do know why the triple lock started in the first place do you? And state pension is low compared to many other countries in Europe, 12 grand a year a lot 😂

I totally agree, and I am not a pensioner.

I have never claimed benefits, and I pay tax and NI. I need to pay 35 years of it to get my state pension, but by the time I retire it’ll be about 50 years.

What people don’t realise is that it is a “contributory” scheme. It’s no different to paying monthly life insurance or a private pension. If I don’t pay into it for over 20 years (is it still this) I get nothing. Then it is pro rated if you haven’t reached 35 years.

If I am not getting my state pension then the government needs to pay back a portion of my NI (50% spent on pensions, so let’s say 50% of all my NI is owed back to me) plus interest, because I could’ve been paying that into a private pension.

Those who don’t contribute to the pot need to be first in line to have their payments cut.

They have. It's called auto enrolment.
There are pensioners who have never worked a day in their lives who are getting a State pension so it's obviously not a ' I've paid in so I'll get out'. system

Pensioners in other countries also have to pay for a lot more, including health insurance.

Me too.

And how much gave those Europeans paid in compared to an equivalent British worker…?

but I find it mad that adults who have had their entire lives to plan for their retirement

Absolutely not picking on you personally, but I think the whole 'entire life' thing is also commonly misappropriated and can even be weaponised - from both angles.

People complaining about what current generations of pensioners receive may say "they've had their whole life to plan for it" and, by the same token, many pensioners will talk about having "worked and paid for their whole life for it".

Unless they have very forward-thinking (and privileged) parents or grandparents, how many people are realistically going to be in a position to think about and plan for their retirement as children? And even if you started work at 15 and earned enough to pay tax from day 1, that's still another unfunded decade and a half of everybody's lives that gets overlooked. In the old days when many women got pensions from 60, that's still an absolute minimum of a quarter of 'their entire lives' that mysteriously doesn't actually get included in the figures and claims.

Well said.

It is the case that we are not paying towards our own state pension. That's not how it works and that's simply a fact.

I don't think the government is going to tell people that there won't be a state pension in their future or that what there is will look nothing like it does today. Can you imagine how that would go? No government is going to be brave enough to spell it out.

Tbh, people shouldn't need to be told it's unsustainable. They should be able to look at the state of things and work it out and do their best to prepare because the country is financially fucked and unless we strike oil or gold up the back of some alley in the next few years we're screwed and the best thing we can do is face it.

It's terrifying because all of those born here in the last few generations grew up taking retirement for granted. The thought of the future possibly being more like life in the 1800s and early 1900s than any time post ww2 is scary as hell. We've been cushioned and we've been raised to believe we are entitled to a safety net.

We need to hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

You are forgetting the fact that until relatively recently that the private pensions that people paid into through their salary were not protected.
What people were paying into was a bank account that the directors and asset strippers if the company was sold could use as their own private piggy bank or could be dipped into to prop up the company if it was failing.

I paid into a private pension for years.

That pension is worth £0

I wasn’t forgetting that, I was literally not addressing it at all.

I never understand the people who say 'I paid in good faith, it's a contract, etc., etc.'. NI isn't something you opt in or out of depending on whether you think it's a good deal. You paid it because you legally had to, your personal opinion on whether you thought you were going to get a good deal out of the state pension or not is irrelevant.

Because current pensioners paid for the generation before. We all pay forward so we are all in the same boat. The current generation of pensioners doesn't owe you, just as the previous generation of pensioners didn't own them.

If the system needs adjusting then let's get on with it, but don't suggest it is personal, because it isn't.

It isn’t blaming pensioners to point out this isn’t a sustainable scheme

Can we pin this to top of MNs!

Only those who have earned (and had NI employer and enployee contributions paid on) an average of at least £36,000 per year (in today's money) across their working lives and manage to die before their retirement period exceeds 50% of their working period (ie before age 89 ish) have actually paid for their pension. It is unaffordable but withdrawing it from those who have actually paid their fair share isn't very fair.

The reforms I would suggest are to have a lower pension amount for those whose NIcontributions during their working lives didn't average out as exceeding the £185 per month (in todays money, adjusted for each tax year according to inflation) that someone who is working 30 hours a week on minimum wage contributes. Being a SAHP for a child under the age of 2 or being in receipt of a benefit indicating being unable to work counting as contributing but being unemployed or SAHP for older children not counting. Those who haven't contributed at that threshold should have a pension that is around 60-75% of the pension amount that those who have reached the threshold get. It's a travesty for people who haven't paid in to be richer in retirement than they were when they were of working age and clearly they don't need that income level as they managed for so many decades without earning.

A modest amount of means-testing that leaves middle-income people unaffected but targets obny the wealthiest would be ok. I wpuld suggest that there's a sliding scale to reduce state pension income that kicks in when your total income from state pension, private pension and investment income reaches the higher rate tax threshold of £50,270pa, with 10% of it (£1,255pa) lost for each £3,000 above that threshold a person's retirement income exceeds. Most people with private pensions are only getting a few thousand pounds per year that they need to top up the state pension to an amount that is comfortable to live on and those people shouldn't be punished with a means test deduction

If you haven’t worked a days employment in your life, never had children or had them and the other parent claimed the child benefit and never signed on for benefits then your state pension isn’t going to be the same as everyone else’s.