Means testing State Pension

[CuriousMariette]

Do you think the time has come for this to be introduced? I don’t think the current system is sustainable as many people are living too long. I know it’s not fair and would be political suicide but Pensioner’s didn’t even suffer a 80% furlough during lockdowns. I say this from a place of having “paid in” as people say for 30 years plus already and would likely not receive a State Pension in this scenario.

@monfused those were the era's people were talking about
I blame the 90's onwards like in the example i gave job i had in 97 £18000 a year sams job now pays £25000
2 bed flat £62000 my nan bought that same flat worth about £320000 poss more
How i wish I had bought then

If universal payment happens I’ll quit my job tomorrow, not worth the stress. I’m sure many others would too. I would also consider moving countries.

@Blossomtoes I think it was government policy to encourage people into further education for a variety of reasons as another poster already told you. I don't think younger people just woke up one day & all decided they simply must go to university.
But we all await with baited breath some more of your excellent contributions 😆

@monfused rent controls would help it would save goverment money as well as how many people are claiming UC to top up rent as wages don't cover
Around here i think average wage is £20000 and a 1 bed flat is about £650 plus bills , on £20000 thats hard to maintain

[quote monfused]@Blossomtoes I think it was government policy to encourage people into further education for a variety of reasons as another poster already told you. I don't think younger people just woke up one day & all decided they simply must go to university.
But we all await with baited breath some more of your excellent contributions 😆[/quote]
Please don’t be so rude, it’s completely unnecessary. Obviously the pp was entirely correct. In every detail.

@worriedatthemoment I only saw the 70s mentioned on the thread & in terms of buying a house it has got harder since then as the graph another poster linked showed. Home ownership decline which is a different statistic peaked later but has been declining.

Please don’t be so rude, it’s completely unnecessary

😆 are you actually ok?

I mean this was you posting the below....

"You tell me what you think."

"This should be good."

I mean you might think the above is polite but....

@Somanyquestions1984 thing is if it happens companies just put up prices etc as people have more income etc
There is no easy answer

& dont forgot the disparity with regards to multiple home ownership.

"Half (52%) of all the assets held in additional properties is held by the baby boomers, born 1946-65, and a further quarter (25%) by generation X, born 1966-80."

I would favour higher SD on additional properties & higher CGT personally.

It's definitely harder now for young people to buy homes

Working class could afford housing in yester year on 1 salary

Something else to remember many 'working class' trades people hourly paid weren't eligible to get a mortgage regardless of the money they earned because it wasn't salaried.

I know a few couples who were denied mortgages in the 60s and 70s they were the people who then ended up buying their council houses in the 80s and 90s but not before they spent years renting.

It's very difficult to compare but they were less of the current pensioners who went to Uni, a vocational college HND / HNC was actually worth something. They were down valued with the get 50% of people to have a degree, which also led to many degrees being worthless and a huge amount of student debt.

[quote worriedatthemoment]@BorgQueen isn't there a country thats trialling a universal payment ? Or one thinking of it[/quote]
Was it Finland?

It isnt unexpected that people who have lived longer and therefore worked longer have had more time to build up assets.

Nobody got their state benefits "furloughed " during lockdown. Why would pensioners be singled out?

UC actually went up.

I actually don't know why people who were furloughed aren't counting their blessings. They probably saved the 20% on transport, buying lunches out and childcare.

Think about the poor sods trying to work, educate and child mind. I was knackered, physically and emotionally exhausted meanwhile I kept getting told what a great time my SIL in the country was having, going for walks and bike rides.

They probably saved the 20% on transport, buying lunches out and childcare.

More than 20% if you include nursery.

@monfused

& dont forgot the disparity with regards to multiple home ownership.

"Half (52%) of all the assets held in additional properties is held by the baby boomers, born 1946-65, and a further quarter (25%) by generation X, born 1966-80."

I would favour higher SD on additional properties & higher CGT personally.

Thing with averages and generalisations. It's that huge and varied and very much not homogenous groups are lumped in together - and it's always the less fortunate of each cohort (including groups by age) who suffer.

And also like I said yesterday, the fact of Covid (including Long Covid ill health), and long term poverty, means that for many the already stagnated life expectancy will fall.

And also what can't, or at least, shouldn't, be ignored and dismissed is the role of smoking.

People are living longer because they were told to live longer.

We can't push people to give up smoking (a massive source of tax income) and then moan about pension and social care costs.

No point giving up smoking and living longer - if that means ending your days in poverty and/or without the dignity of decent and safe care.

Also often ignored, when people talk of a growing elderly population, is that is partly because we have a growing population full stop.

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/articles/overviewoftheukpopulation/january2021#migration-to-the-uk-has-been-the-main-driver-of-population-growth-since-the-1990s

More people = more elderly. Migrants grow old - just like anybody else. Many of today's elderly are the Windrush generation.

It is absolutely not ok to use and exploit migrant labour when they are young...only to then resent them a decent pension and social care when they're older.

Meanwhile, the likes of multi millionaire Blair (young and old) use legal but not so moral tax avoidance schemes.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10054929/Secret-offshore-wealth-world-leaders-revealed-leak-14-MILLION-files-dubbed-Pandora-Papers.html

No because people have factored receiving a state pension into their retirement plan. Higher rate tax payers contribute more than they will every receive back

You are proving my point, you parents bought in the 80s when there was a price crash. Timing is everything but you don't know till it's too late.

There was a massive property boom late 80s. When we bought our first home together., it cost 2.5 times what the vendors paid for it 3 years earlier. And 4 times what our neighbours had paid for their's 5 years earlier. We'd not been in it long when interest rates went up to 13%. A lot of negative equity and repossessions. Wasn't all great news propertywise in the 80s.

@RockingMyFiftiesNot

You are proving my point, you parents bought in the 80s when there was a price crash. Timing is everything but you don't know till it's too late.

There was a massive property boom late 80s. When we bought our first home together., it cost 2.5 times what the vendors paid for it 3 years earlier. And 4 times what our neighbours had paid for their's 5 years earlier. We'd not been in it long when interest rates went up to 13%. A lot of negative equity and repossessions. Wasn't all great news propertywise in the 80s.

But the mortgage interest was tax deductible! That makes a huge difference.

But the mortgage interest was tax deductible! That makes a huge difference.
You got tax relief (you didn't get the interest deducted off your tax as some people think) - but on massive mortgages because of the explosion in house prices I described and the sharp hike in interest rates. That tax relief didn't prevent the mass of reposessions and people going into negative equity. I saw so many people who were desperate at that time, please don't dismiss the situation.

@Blossomtoes

The system now is inefficient as some do not need the state pension

So who decides who “needs” the pension they’ve been making contributions to, in some cases, for 50 years? The vote against any party putting this in their manifesto would be the biggest landslide ever. .

Deciding that is the very definition of “means testing”

@Blossomtoes

" Because. More. People. Have. Degrees

And.why.do.you.think.that.is? 

You tell me what you think.

This should be good.

++++

More than happy to explain.

In essence more people have degrees today than in 1970 because more jobs today require degrees in order to perform them than in 1970.

For example:
Jobs that existed in both 1970 and 2021 such as say teachers or nurses are significantly more complex and technical with more specialist knowledge required than they were in 1970 which means that teachers and nurses often very much need a higher level of education (degrees) to perform these roles.

Jobs that existed in 1970 and today such as doctors or lawyers needed degrees both in 1970 and today.

Jobs that didn't exist in 1970 but do in 2022 such as say a search engine optimisation specialist or a genetic counsellor need the knowledge and expertise from higher level of education (degrees) in order to do their complex jobs.

Jobs that did exist in 1970 that were viewed as skilled but not requiring a degree such as steel manufacturing workers or production line workers are now viewed as relatively lower skilled and outsourced to countries with lower labour costs.

Jobs that existed in both 1970 and in 2021 and that in both times are viewed as relatively low skilled such as fruit pickers is usually outsourced to lower cost migrant workers.

Now I am sure that there are many graduates with degrees that find themselves in jobs such as retail or hospitality that do not require a degree to do them, but this is usually because they have been unable to find the job they wish to do and are admirably working hard in a job they could find until they secure the job they actually want to do.

I think part of your misunderstanding is the assumption that a nursing job today is the same as it was in 1970 when the reality is that it is incredibly more technical and complex even if the basic tenets of patient care is the same.

You also fail to grasp that many jobs that existed in 1970 no longer exist in 2022 or have been offshored to countries with lower labour costs.

Lastly you are probably unaware that a very high proportion of jobs that people do today never existed 50 years ago.

And that's why more people need degrees today. Hope this helped...

With means testing, it hits the people just above the generally too low threshold. Hard. They'll struggle. It will also hurt those below it - unless it doesn't get affected by the many admin errors, delays, confusion, and mistakes that so blight the working age benefits.