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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Biggest state pension increase since 2001

45 replies

raranah · 23/11/2015 06:52

Where is this money coming from when everything else is being cut?

Aibu to think the government is trying to start generational wars? They cut everything apart from pensioners. Almost like they want to turn people against each other.

OP posts:

UnlikelyPilgramage · 23/11/2015 06:53

Of course they aren't trying to start generational wars.

They are trying to get re-elected.

Original poster

raranah · 23/11/2015 06:55

Well it stinks. They are looking after people based on age, not on need.

OP posts:

twofingerstoGideon · 23/11/2015 07:02

Yes, it's rising to a whopping £115/week when we have one of the lowest pension rates in Europe. Our state pension rates are nothing to be proud of.

(Not that I agree with cutting other benefits, but I don't think we should engage in a race to the bottom, which is what this government seems intent on encouraging.)

UnlikelyPilgramage · 23/11/2015 07:06

Pensioners vote - the power of the silver head, as my dad would have put it

EdithWeston · 23/11/2015 07:09

"Well it stinks. They are looking after people based on age, not on need."

How would you do it differently then?

I think the raising of basic state pension over years, and a corresponding abolition of pension credit, will simplify things (usually much cheaper to administer) and might even bring our pensioners in line with those elsewhere in EU.

Or are you planning to decouple from NI, and make it means-tested? Or just hope people never retire?

UnlikelyPilgramage · 23/11/2015 07:11

The problem with means testing everything is that you end up with people getting identical amounts: one who works and one who doesn't.

I believe it's that more than anything else causing resentment amongst sub groups.

Rinoachicken · 23/11/2015 07:24

YABU - a pension is a fixed income, no matter if food prices go up or petrol, or gas or electricity. The income is fixed and since no one will employ a pensioner they have no way at all to try and improve their income. They are at the mercy of the state and the taxpayer, and far too many live in cold houses on a diet of soup.

Original poster

raranah · 23/11/2015 07:36

What are pensions elsewhere in Europe then?
I'd increase the pension credit amount and increase benefits for everyone else.

If someone has a private pension of 20k a year, this increase would mean nothing and cost the country a lot.

OP posts:

ilovesooty · 23/11/2015 07:45

It's like Groundhog Day...

BoGrainger · 23/11/2015 07:51

Look at it from another way op. I am 60 next year and would have been due to collect my state pension before the ages were fiddled with. Now 'you' are saving 7 years worth of 'my' entitlement! By the time I get to collect it at 67 I will be so frazzled (I work in an infants' school) that I will probably drop dead the following year. What savings you will make! A win for you all round!

Meetmebythewillowtree · 23/11/2015 07:56

In Ireland the state pension is €230 a week. From age 67.

BoGrainger · 23/11/2015 08:40

Oh fucking hell. Just seen Joan Bakewell on TV talking about another rise in the pension age. I could cry

Original poster

raranah · 23/11/2015 09:18

I dont think there was a need for that bo.

OP posts:

P1nkP0ppy · 23/11/2015 09:28

Well I agree Bo, mine's gone front 60 to 63.4 to 65.5, and I've contributed fully to my state pension throughout my working life (43 years and ongoing) raranah so I'm hardly going to be rich (assuming I live long enough to get it)

SaucyJack · 23/11/2015 09:29

What's Bo said that's unreasonable?

My mum was 60 this year. She missed the cut off point for the pension age rise by a few weeks. Women of around hers and Bo's age have been at least as arse fucked by the Tory government as everyone else.

P1nkP0ppy · 23/11/2015 09:35

I missed out by 2 weeks.......

DeoGratias · 23/11/2015 09:49

The triple lock has to go. That gets pensioners a rise above inflation every year even if we have deflation. It is very unfair and was set up int he days when inflation was abotu 3 - 6% a year anyway.

I will be nearly 70 when I draw my state pension but my father worked full time until 77 and my children's other grandfather was nearly 90 and I want to work until I die so the state pension is not going to be too relevant to me. I think we all need to assume it won't amount to much. I just hope they don't change pension tax rules before I turn 55 and can just cash the whole thing in although even then the state will confiscate nearly half of the lump sum in tax. I hope tax payers are grateful.

SaucyJack · 23/11/2015 09:56

It must really suck P0ppy.

I do see that there was a need to raise the pension age for women, but it would have been infinitely kinder to have staggered it for women already in their fifties who were not at a stage in their careers where they were expecting to need to work full-time for an extra five years.

angelos02 · 23/11/2015 10:20

I'm sure I read that the change in retirement age was announced 20 years ago? Also, seeing as MN loves equality so much, surely it is a good thing that men and women's retirement ages are the same.

AuntieStella · 23/11/2015 10:43

It was the Pensions Act 2007 which started the raising of the pensions age. So wrong to automatically blame the Tories for this.

SaucyJack · 23/11/2015 11:16

But I believe the original changes were much gentler on women in their 50s. They've changed them a couple of times since then.

It must be horrible to have thought you were on the home straight, then to have been told at comparatively the last minute that you were facing working for another 4/5/6 years.

And who's to say it won't go up again either.

Lilymaid · 23/11/2015 11:40

Yes, current furore is about the way the changes have been accelerated. I have just qualified for my state pension, but friends who are two months younger have been affected by a change to the original arrangements about increasing pension age. They will not receive their pensions for a further 18 months +.
My elder DS is horrified by what he sees as the generous treatment of pensioners compared with other sectors of the population (particularly when I showed him my new concessionary bus pass).

AuntieStella · 23/11/2015 12:29

Actually, perhaps you can blame the Tories, because the intention to equalise the age was set out in 1995 to be achieved in stages to 2020. Then under labour, the age was raised, so it is 66 not 65. All changes have had at least a 10 year lead time.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34881092 Today's article seems to be about the number of people who have not been aware that these changes had happened.

Lilymaid · 23/11/2015 13:13

According to the BBC article "In 2011, state pension ages were raised at an even faster rate." I think that may have been when the 1953-55 births had their pension age moved again. The DWP was supposed to notify everyone affected by this change, but as they didn't manage to notify me that I was due to get my pension this year, I'm not surprised that many women have said that they didn't receive anything.

Original poster

raranah · 23/11/2015 13:21

I hardly think its fair to blame just the Tories. It should of been linked to life expectancy many decades ago.

If anything well done for them trying to tackle the pension time bomb.

OP posts:

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