to resent paying Ni when my generation won't get a state pension

[clutchpearl]

Just about every think tank that does a report on the state pension says it won't exist for people under 40 and we won't have the luxury of a couple of decades supported by the state. Aibu to feel like its all some ponzi con?

Velo - back in the day (20 30 years ago) they would have been paid less than workers not in public service, in order to benefit in the future form better pensions and terms and conditions. That gap has been eroded to some degree nowadays -

but I know in the past - from my husband's experience - a Government pension meant people were prepared to take a job with a salary £1000 pa lower than one in outside industry. The trade off being that the job was more secure and held future benefits.

There will be no jobs in the future, all the work will be done by robots and computers, we will have to come up with some other system to distribute services and resources

That is the promise we were peddled 30 years ago - however, computers have just generated yet more work..

really?
Far as I can see there is a shortage of skilled work?
Many jobs have become automated and that looks set to continue

Having worked in jobs where computers have been introduced "to make the job easier", I have found that in every single case they have made the job longer and increased costs.... (I have not worked in a job that was easily automated)

email - an easy way to keep in touch... no a way to pile up heaps of unimportant crap that you are still expected to respond to - whilst doing the actual job..

let's have our government department more automated... oh, that means we will also need an IT department, contract out for the IT infrastructure - so we need an external projects department, we will need more offices - so you can keep the public side separate from the data side - different computer systems for this and that - oh you will need firewalls and broadband and rewiring and support teams and blah blah blah - when the job, at its heart, involves a person picking up a phone and answering a query, and reading between the lines and providing support.

A department I worked in had 20 people 20 years ago. They do the same work now - but have 44 people employed and external contracts for infrastrucure - still have 20 doing the actual job...

NoLongerJustAShopGirl I agree with you mostly about computers. I think we could do better though.

On the other hand think of things you do online which would take 1000s of salespeople to take the orders on the phone.

I don't think they will get away abolishing the state pension. 2/3 of private sector workers don't have a state pension and they're going to end up with swathes of destitute people if they do that.

?Not to mention automated checkouts in supermarkets, online shopping replacing actual supermarkets.
How long before pickers and packers are replaced by robot? ?

?Swathes of formerly middle class destitute people who are likely to be politically active / clued up?

HandsOff from your tone it is equally obvious that my having written in a deliberately scathing manner has bypassed you completely.

I am not a boomer, my parents are and they are utterly skint, no home, few savings etc. Not the stereotype at all. Probably because they are working class.

But my point was and still is that every generation has its bugbears and difficulties, I overcame those of my (your?) generation by taking what my parents and grandparents generations had fought for and appreciating them. I mean, do you really think that HAVING to have 2 wages in order to live well is right? Do you think that all of the women here who cannot afford nannies, full time childcare WANT to be stuck between a rock and a hard place financially? I don't.

Sorry, I can see in your later post that we probably agree there!

The current myth that boomers are stealing your future is a reprehensible lie that the meeja likes to hype, it sells copies, it gives politickos a soap box, and provides a convenient distraction from the real problem of decades of political fear of changing the framework too drastically. Governments of either flavour could have made a profound difference decades ago, had they had the nerve. But Thatcherism had many more long term effects than was ever expected and shaking up the middle classes has long been a particularly hot potato!

‎Swathes of formerly middle class destitute people who are likely to be politically active / clued up‎.

Why do you think that Suzanne?

Do you think people who work in the private sector are all middle class? In fact it's largely likely to be people who work in jobs like retail, care, construction, call centres and so on who are on salaries so low they can't afford to pay into a pension each month and likely will not own a property either.

?I was alluding to the fact that the middle classes are being phased out, we are turning into a society consisting of a small extractive wealthy elite and the rest who struggle to get by
?

Nomama, tone is hard to read on the Internet, sorry. After Demezel's rant against me and her agreement with you I read it as written and missed the point entirely

I don't think the boomers deliberately took advantage and not all benefitted from the set of circumstances their generation had. I think you're right to highlight that not much changed for the working class.

The people who benefitted generally had enough money to buy their own homes and worked in industries with final salary pensions. They are now hugely better off than people with the same jobs in my generation could ever be (I'm 33 FWIW).

Our current system is designed around providing a basic retirement for a small population of retired people with a low life expectancy.

What is happening at the moment is that a mix of wealthy and less wealthy people reach a retirement that can reasonably be expected to last around 25 years and take masses from the state whether they need to or not. Meanwhile working age benefits are cut.

NI is the most unfair element in this. Because it originally was linked to providing a pension, pensioners don't pay it. With our current system this is a nonsense.

Consider a private pension. You pay into it from your gross salary. Thus you save both tax and NI that you would otherwise have paid on the way out.

At retirement, 25% is tax free, then you pay tax but not NI on the remainder.

As an example (basic rate taxpayer aged over 55)

£1000 bonus taken as cash, tax £200, NI £120 so net £680.

£1000 bonus into pension and immediately taken as cash as allowed in new rules.

£250 tax free. 20% on £750 = £150 of tax. Total net £850.

Regardless of anything else in the debate over boomers, we need to make pensioners pay their NI.

S'OK, Handsoff - happens all the time

I don't get the 'pensioners don't pay it' gripe, with the state pension. They did pay it, then stopped working and now don't.... all monies coming in have already been taxed at source. Some pension income continues to be taxed but NI would be double dipping the same pot, wouldn't it?

And as I said earlier, if successive govts had had the nerve to tackle the private pension sector early enough the discrepancies would be far less glaring. That includes the weirdly non means tested pensions and benefits... no sane person could disagree with that! The time for universal retirement benefits is long gone.

But I still stand by the 'don't hate the boomers' statement. They are very much the current bogeyman, used to distract the populace from another, more real issue.

If we changed to a system where everyone, including pensioners who only have the state pension have to pay in, then I'd go along with that. But then you really do have to make everyone pay in, or be entitled to nothing cash use if they don't.

It's about fairness. I get that there are wealthy pensioners that get their state pension and their WFA, but you have to remember that those people have already paid more tax than many. If you're going to continue to make them pay tax in retirement, then it follows that other groups of people who currently don't pay tax should have to as well.

This is where I like the idea of a personal allowance for every individual, and a flat rate of tax for everyone as well.

Well posted Toooldtba....Couldn't have put it any better myself.

Nomama, current NI thresholds mean that people on the bare state pension wouldn't pay any NI anyway so there's no double dipping.

It's those with significant other income where the larger unfairness arises.

The example I gave of a personal pension above shows why NI should be paid on other pensions.

A single allowance taking account of income from all sources is a very good idea but I think we need more than one tax rate as we'll otherwise be putting a big burden on the poor to cut the tax of the wealthy.

My step one would be an allowance of £10k, then 32% on the next £40k, 42% on next £60k and 49% on everything else.

Basically as before for employees with the tweak of an extra 2% in the top rate to offset the fact that everyone earning over 100k would keeps their allowance.

I'd leave Employers NI alone initially. As Fraidy cat said admitting that the basic rate was really 40% would be a hard sell!