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.

You must have quite an extravagant lifestyle. Many working people don’t have much more than that as a joint household income and they have more things to pay for than the average pensioner. It’s all relative I suppose.

That is a joint income.

We worked too you know. We weren’t born at 60.

Even so, unless you still have mortgage / rent to pay, it’s quite a lot just for bills, food and living. But as I said, it’s all relative and depends on what essential costs you have. If you’re paying for care I can understand it won’t go that far.

I didn’t say you didn’t, but when working you have costs you likely won’t have when retired - mortgage, rent (appreciate some still will have this though) children, commuting etc. Plus you’ll have deductions from income you won’t have when retired like NI and pension contributions.

At 62 and 63? Care? 🤣

I’m not a toddler. I know all this. Are you always this patronising?

@june35 but if you have a job, say police, where you can take early retirement because of the pension arrangements, or invested in a private pension which can be calculated to give you £3k a month, say for 5 years, then you can reduce it once state pension starts - and you want and early retirement with funds to travel, go to theatre, buy a hot tub etc etc you can easily blow through £3k a month.

but the discussion about state pensions is separate to personal additions

state pension is enough to exist on, just as the contributions over working lives is about average

it’s an average state pension, for average contributions, which provides a basic standard of living, and everyone who has paid in and received yearly credits to get the state pension or a percentage of it has fulfilled that obligation

I could say some of your previous replies have been patronising. Of course I know (some) pensioners worked. I guess it’s ok to be patronising to people who are younger than you?

Where have I been patronising? Do you think I don't know what we stopped paying when we retired?

So we don't pay pensions contributions (duh), or NI. We stopped having a mortgage a few years before we retired but saved the payments for - guess what?

We still pay every other thing we paid while working. CT, gas and electricity, petrol, insurance, TV licence, Sky, phones, broadband, food etc etc etc.

None of these bills suddenly stop when you retire.

The only people I know taking retirement in their 50s are company owners or public sector in final salary pensions GPs, teachers, nurses, police. Normal private sector plodding on till state retirement age.

Yes my facebook feed is full of Nurses spending their big lump sum pensions ! Never seen so many people traveling around the world, far east, Australia. Well deserved though after years of slog. Can't wait to take mine at 60 in a few years although won't be spent on travel and won't be big !

Exactly. Neither of my grandparents ever worked full time - at most they did very occasional jobs like being a dinner lady a few days a week. Both my grandfather's retired at 50 having worked manual jobs (i.e. not high earners thus didn't pay loads of tax). 2 of them are still going strong at 88! I'm not denigrating their hard work or denying that in many ways their lives were harder than mine but purely in terms of money in vs money out there is no way they paid for themselves.

Did they retire at 50 with no income?

Only for certain cases I’m afraid

Yes absolutely deserved and no problem for all the young tax payers and those of us who also have slogged for years who are retiring later to pay for their final salary pensions for the next 30 years - longer maybe that some of them have actually worked.

.According to the Retirement Living Standards, a single person needs the following amounts to fund different types of retirement lifestyles (which include the State Pension):
Minimum: £14,400 a year. Covers all basic living needs (such as food, energy, and some transport) but leaves almost no room for extras or holidays

So its not deemed enough which is why the triple lock is still in place to catch up

My grandmother is 98. Never had to work but paid voluntary National Insurance contributions. A quick calculation would indicate she paid approximately £35k in but, so far, has taken approximately £200k out!

They contributed to their own pensions.

So universities are completely funded by fees, no public money at all?

With a massive contribution from the government of 27 to 30% which is the tax payer .

Do you have a source for those figures?

But the government/ employer contribution is huge.

Public sector pensions are much much better than most in the private sector. Most of them will pay out for the rest of your life too, there’s no danger of running out of money.

They pay tax too you know. Do you know why it's called a deferred benefit?