The state pension is HOW MUCH???

[BeatieBourke]

Call me stupid (fair) but I've just realised how much the state pension is. £800 odd a month (£185.15pw).

As a non-means tested benefit. For EVERYONE.

I'm generally of the opinion that benefits are too low and too punitive. I usually advocate for universalism. I understand that people have worked their whole lives and paid in, and deserve a retirement. And that having pensioners in poverty does no favours to the economy or other welfare services.

But £800 a month / £9k a year for EVERYONE?? So a widower in rented accommodation with no other income or savings, £800pm. A wealthy 68 year old who's earned a 6 figure salary, has a huge property portfolio and investments coming out of their ears that pay a fortune out in dividends, £800pm. Seriously?

I understand that no party, least of all the Tories (because tory voters as a population are older) will ever go after pensions because it would be unpopular (and older people vote more generally). But in a time when the country is supposedly facing a financial "black hole" and everything else has already been cut to the bone for the last 12 years, why the hell are we paying out state benefits to millionaires?

Maybe if pensions were means tested (with a fairly high and tapering threshold) there'd be enough to pay pensions for women at 65, and more for people who haven't built up huge assets, can't afford to live, heat their homes or eat a hot meal every day in their later years. I can see the (cynical) political sense in it, but no economic sense whatsoever.

AIBU?

Have you checked for pension credit entitlement?

Um every one who receives state pension has paid into it ffs.its not a benefit like a single parent or unemployed person may get .I have 30 years my dh more.also get credits for being home with dc until child is 12.

The UK state pension is stupidly low. When even American social security is higher, you know the UK is miserly. (The US is keyed to your income and how long you paid in, with a cap. The current monthly maximum is $3,300, and the average is $1,600.)

Nobody gets this amount at the moment. Younger people will when they retire.

@IsItThough i think we have to acknowledge generational inequalities. The boomers are rich compared to everyone else and why shouldn’t we we discuss it?

I do appreciate it’s not blanket which is why means testing seems instinctively fairer. My parents are financially struggling boomers and I’m a comfortable/fortunate millennial actually.

It’s saddening to see the kids coming through with huge uni debt, slashed education budgets and social mobility ‘stagnant’ (according to professor Lee Elliot Major) when some pensioners are getting far more benefits than they need just because they have a large vote. I’m not saying it just to be divisive. This wealth won’t all trickle down the generations and that’s the point - the poorest of the younger generations are even more screwed than ever.

Trying to prop them up?!
You ungrateful nasty person.
I'll have worked for 50 years and paid huge amounts of tax and NI for my pension. There'll be no one propping me up but my own graft, just as it's always been.

Come on now OP, stop the dramatics! Pension age will go up, but 99 it will not be. I can get where you are coming from, but those well off pensioners are the ones who have paid more Income Tax, National Insurance etc. into the economy.

My husband didn’t make pension age and it is highly likely that I won’t either. As I said in a previous post, I wish I had that £800 a month now, cause I’m having to survive on less than that!

It’s my understanding that, generally speaking, means testing a benefit costs more than it would save, @BeatieBourke.

Is that not the plan anyway ? you can’t take it with you can you ?

I wondered why my state pension was closer to £600 per month than £800.( It’s the full pension). It has been explained above

Quite agree. Those days need to stay in the past where they belong.

I find that really hard to believe to be honest with you in these days of automation.

I've been paying into a private pension forever - I'm still forecast to get the full amount according to my government gateway account - I though everyone was these days regardless?

The problem is once you start means testing it things get progressively more strict and exclude more people. Look what happened with university tuition fees - started on something relatively low like 1k per year and then ramped up. Once floodgates open there's no going back. A preferable alternative would be to tax actual wealth IMHO.

Why are people here saying the stare pension is not a benefit? It is a benefit. Look at the government website.

But who was paying for your upbringing before you had any wages? The people who were working paid for for your schooling, family allowance, and anything else that you had from the government because they were working. It's their turn now youre working.

You will get a full state pension. A full state pension is not £800 a month for older people. with a private pension.

My mum's pension is about £640 a month. Her private pension is about £220 per month. She may as well not have bothered putting money towards the latter because the former would have been topped up anyway with Pension Credit. Really pisses me off because she's not entitled to Pension Credit so misses out on various schemes although her overall income is similar.

Very true!

My DH fell into the old system as he is 5 years older than me.

We both earned similar amounts during our working lives, both of us retired at the same age and DH holds 2 private pensions plus a blue chip one.

He receives over £200 per month state pension more than I do. ☹️

Thé current state pension is £185 a week. If you get less because of insufficient contributions, you can claim pension credit (assuming you don’t have other funds).

you do realize that the rate for uc is less than half state pension rate?

Almost every other country!

Call me stupid (fair) but I've just realised how much the state pension is. £800 odd a month (£185.15pw).

Just to point out, for starters, that £185.15 pw is the maximum anyone can get under the new state pension scheme. They have to meet certain criteria in terms of no of years of working and paying their full National Insurance contributions. For many people they will never meet the criteria to get that full amount. Many thousands of older people who worked all their lives get or will get anything LIKE that amount due to their circumstances during their working life. £600 - £700 per month is much more common at the moment - or even less

As a country, we are waaayyy down the league table of state pensions paid in other countries.

State pension isn't a means tested benefit and shouldn't be. People have worked and paid their NI and it is a right to have it, regardless of how much other income they may have

I agree, tax people so wealthy pensioners pay more.

Lots of us were contracted out and won't get the full pension despite paying 40 years contributions. And my understanding is that it's too expensive to means test, though I wonder if that's still true.
£800 pcm is not a lot to live off in retirement. Try it.

@MsPincher - how 'rich' do you feel one needs to be to no longer deserve the state pension?

In other words, how do you define rich, both in terms of assets and annual income?