To think pensioners paying NI is a step towards equality

[jnfrrss]

Apparently it would raise 2 billion a year and help cover social care.

Mail comments are furious people, but isn't it a step towards a more equal society and taxing everyone more similar regardless of age?

Ni just seems like such an outdated system and in an ideal world it would all be rolled into one tax with income.

And I do agree that young people have a tough time of it. But that's down to successive governments and the world economy, not some big conspiracy by the boomer generation.

When I was a kid, hardly anyone owned their own home, I think the increase in home ownership in the eighties was something of a historical blip, much like the emancipation of women. Society is going backwards in many ways.

Once again, there's no suggestion that pensions attract NI. The proposal is that working pensioners pay NI on their wages, thus hitting the very poorest of them.

The poorest pensioners do not have State pension plus a job paying more than the NI threshold.

They do. The threshold kicks in at £162 a week.

£162 a week is £8k pa. It only applies to earned income. ie not pensions.

The poorest pensioners have State pension and / or pension credit. They do not have additional earned income of £8k.

And you know this how?

How odd that we have a bottomless pit of money to keep the enormous extended royal family living in unbelievable luxury, yet nothing to support our elder citizens after a lifetime of paying NI and making sacrifices when younger to prepare for their old age.
It's time the older generation stop getting blamed for all the ills of our country.

Are you proposing people to pay NI on their state pension or just people who have a private pension or other income ? If you put your National Insurance number into the HMRC website it will provide you with estimated amount to be paid and what age you will receive. The money is not much to live on (but plenty of people do). So when you are 80+ do you want to choose between eat or heat ? The elderly should be treated with respect.

Everyone can earn £8 kish before they start paying NI. For a working pensioner this is in addition to their state pension entitlement. Given the low levels of pensioners working beyond age 65 and the projection that this change would raise over £2bn it looks likely that it will hit well paid working retirees rather than lollypop people who earn nothing like £8k.

Exactly! But I don't think logic or stats have much of a place here.

Pensioners have been unfairly protected throughout this. There's going to have to be some hard choices for the government. If they really cold just tax Amazon or Facebook eaisly to get the money they for sure would do that rather than risk losing votes.

I think the current proposal doesn't really make sense unless they want to encourage people of pensioning age to quit working as well, which i expect the government doesn't want.

Perhaps make pensioners that earn above 50k pay NI if they're still in work as they're not going to be as affected by difference as much.

But then, I expect the proposal wouldn't even cover the admin costs so it would be entirely pointless.

"Are you proposing people to pay NI on their state pension or just people who have a private pension or other income ?"

No one is proposing that people pay NI on any pension, state or private. The proposal is that now we no longer have a compulsory retirement age those people who choose to stay in employment beyond the state pension age pay NI on their earnings just as their colleagues below the state pension age do.

Blue There are 12m pensioners. Just over 2m claim pension credit and Govt estimates that a further 1.5m are eligible to claim but don't. Interestingly more of these are men than women. It is not worth working if it would be clawed back from pension credit.

www.pensionspolicyinstitute.org.uk/pension-facts/pension-facts-tables/state-pensions-pension-credit-table-11

These are the poor who need support rather than the 1m who are fit enough and have the opportunity to work beyond retirement age.

However if the generational contract and the housing market aren't fixed soon then the HB bill for future retirees will dwarf basic pension entitlements.

The current pensioners retired earlier than those who are still in work ie women at 60 men at 65, with many taking early retirement. The pension age wil be 68 within a few years so whilst I think those who have benefitted from pensions at 60 and 65 maybe should pay ni I think that those who work to 66/67 and 68 should not. I really do think the current pensioners do not realise how lucky they have been

I could agree with that! But how would you tax unearned income on increased house prices?

First I have to say this.

I hate the Tories. I would under no circumstances consider voting for them even in some scenario that stopped UKIP getting in. I physically could not do it.

That said.

The "dementia tax" (to give it it's tabloid name) was a good idea. Much fairer than the current system and would be most beneficial poorer people.

How is working and paying for your pension for around 45 - 50 years lucky?

I really do think the current pensioners do not realise how lucky they have been

Exactly, they will go down as the luckiest generation ever the boomers. It's easy to find one or two poor boomers and say poppycock but compared to the generations after they are very very lucky.

Think of your average youth now with 60k uni debt, unsecured jobs, no decent pension, exuberant house price and faces never taking a state pension. Once people see they are subbing others for a lifestyle they won't achieve themselves it won't be pretty.

NI is a regressive tax, so any proposal to extend it is an act of aggression against lower earners.
FWIW NI is supposed to be ring fenced for social security ie unemployment and - oh, fancy that - pensions. It never has been, of course, because as soon as it came into existence it was used to pay out what was needed immediately. Maybe we should start complaining about those people who lived through two world wars and a depression and got a pension They Didn't Pay For. 😀

The Government is fostering this inter generational hate.

I really do think the current pensioners do not realise how lucky they have been I think you missed a few words!

SOME of the boomers really did live during a time of great change and social upheaval. Changes that we ALL benefit from today. I am not sure you can blame them for when they were born!

However MANY boomers are not living in the lap of luxury, are not home owners, don't have massive private incomes etc. All of that "It's only a couple that aren't, you'll never find one that is grateful" shite is misinformed and nasty!

You'll equally never find a millenial who is grateful for having the vote, having social security, working tax credits, greater social mobility, greater chances for travel, education, etc etc etc.

Why? Because, just as with the boomers, NOT ALL OF THEM do benefit. Stereotypes do not describe an entire generation.

Anyway! Given that the thread has descended into the usual trite bollocks, there's even a republican joined in!!! I'm off. Going to work towards my own pension pot, getting myself ready for that twice extended pension age, putting in another day of my fifty years worth of NI and tax contributions.

Many older people did not go to university in the past when it was ‘free’ ie paid by workers who never had the chance as only about 5% went.

People like me and my husband started work at 16 in my case and 12 in his - we therefore paid NI tax etc for some 10 years before the current generation now start work.

Too many people go to university now to do pointless subjects and spend 3 years partying.

We have paid enough - remember not all older people are well off - many especially older divorced women are quite poor.

The middle class did in general have an easier time in the past.
But plenty of people did not. My DM was a single parent. Single parents then were treated like absolute shit. My mum insisted on keeping her baby - me, plenty of women had their kids taken off them and adopted out. She was given the equivalent of £70 a week to survive on, and that had to include rent - she could not pay for childcare and her family would not have anything to do with her. Which meant she stayed with me in slums with no running water, because that was all she could afford.
I have met older disabled people who were institutionalised for many years. They did not have the opportunities disabled people have now.
I am friends with an older lesbian women who was in an asylum for many years simply because she was a lesbian.

When people talk about baby boomers having had it so good, they mean white, able bodied middle class or better off working class people. Those who were looked down on by society had it much much worse than people in the present day. And I am so glad that things have got better.

as they have already 'paid'for the pension.

I get taxed on my pay, taxed on everything I buy, get taxed on the medicines I need.

I think if someone has an income, be it wages, pension or benefits they should pay a proportion of that towards services they'll require - they're not "free" and never have been.

Something has to be done otherwise they'll be paying a considerably larger amount into a private insurance policy when the NHS folds.....

But it can't be done in isolation - the NHS needs massive reform to make it effective.

How is working and paying for your pension for around 45 - 50 years lucky?

Luckier than me - I'll be working and paying for my pension for 60-70 years.....

When I say she had the equivalent of £70 a week, I mean the amount she was given from Government is now in real terms worth £70. You try living week in and week out paying your bills, rent and food for you and one child from £70 a week, and tell me that all baby boomers had it easy.
There are so many who post on MN struggling who in the past would have had nowhere to go. All those women being abused - there used to be no shelters, no Women's Aid. If you left your abusive Husband, you were not entitled to any benefits. If your disabled kid could not cope at school or you were struggling caring for them, you were advised to put them in an institution.
I actually worked very briefly as a 16 year old in an institution for disabled kids and teenagers nearly 40 years ago. The kids were fed and bathed, but nothing else. Even 40 years ago I was shocked at how they were basically ignored.
And this subject does make me angry. Because it focuses on those who were privileged in the recent past, and ignores all those who were mistreated. It indivisibles them. Lets just pretend disabled people, single mothers, lesbian and gay people, battered women, black people, etc, did not exist in the recent past. Let's ignore what those people went through and just pretend that everyone was white, able bodied, straight and led an easy life.

A true example of being so obsessed with equality you don't see that equity is fairer. Bit like the buggy mums telling me as a wheelchair user "you wanted equality now have it" whilst barging into the wheelchair space on the bus because they see that as equal treatment.

So sad society has become a desperate race to the bottom for eroding workers rights and taking disability benefits from terminally ill people 'because it's fair'.

Whilst the real parasites on our economy - big business - still gets away with their tax avoidance.

illogical Only if life expectancy has increased. At the moment average life expectancy is 82 for women and 79 for men. On average women receive state pension for 15 years, and men for 12 years.