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?

So your friend defrauded the pension scheme?

I think you may have missed my essential point in that denying wealthier people the benefit will not result in the less wealthy being given more. Do you really think that's how governments behave?

As for expecting gratitude, for the wealthy paying tax on pensions, not at all. I was merely stating a fact.

They are means tested at the point of contribution. The more you earn, the more you pay in NI.
in 2021/2, someone earning 25K paid £1851 National Insurance.
someone earning £1Mil paid £23,878 in NI.

My pension plan was that I went without when I was working, in order to pay extra into my work pension, so I didn't have too many money worries in my old age.
I also paid my contributions for over 30 years.
So now I want what I have paid for, thank you. I pay tax on my pension, too.

I am also one of the 300,000 women for whom the pension age goalposts were moved for the second time with insufficient notice to allow me to make alternative arrangements.

Perhaps I should have partied and pissed it all up the wall, then claimed benefits.

Relative.

I guess so, maybe you could defraud pension schemes more easily 30 years ago, their generations lucky streak knows no end does it ?

DF has a (state funded as ex civil service) 6 figure index linked occupational pension as well as his state pension, attendance allowance, free bus pass, winter fuel allowance etc and doesn't get why I think that pensioners are over treated compared to the rest of us...

Probably because the majority of pensioners don't have the same income as your DF?

Total cost for state pension in 2020 alone was over £101billion. You cannot compare anything mps do to that.

we need to save money and this is the fairest place to do it.

I am seriously wondering if I should have just partied and not tried to be sensible with money.

Umm good for you, I guess. But please enlighten me on what else this is besides “rich people suck and should give more”.

Look around.. (FTR…I only know about your UC from what I’ve read here). There are a lot of struggling people who don’t make the ‘means testing’ cut and are far worse off than those who do. You want to apply this to retirement income… for old people?

Those same ‘rich people’ have been paying in and supporting at an exponentially higher rate all along. Now you want them to do the same in their retirement. While they are still most likely paying taxes to fund other social programs.

‘How much is enough for you to be satisfied?

But this is how UC - and other benefits work… If you have savings and assets but are out of work, you get no benefits. You have to use your savings even if you’ve paid loads of tax and NI in your previous employment. I think op has a good point. Why is pension different from unemployment support?

Fraud is hardly a good basis on which to make policies for everyone else who has not committed fraud.

we need to save money and this is the fairest place to do it.

You seriously believe that after 18 pages of this thread? The fairest way to do it would be to cancel HS2 or tax BP and Shell on their obscene profits.

why do you think we need to impoverish children and take away healthcare before we can possibly stop giving money to rich Tory voters? Are you really so self interested?

MsPincher I think you've misunderstood the point I was making, or I wasn't clear enough.

However - you start targeting one group, it won't be long before the spotlight falls on another. Today the old, tomorrow the young. Today the sick, tomorrow the pregnant.
People have paid weekly contributions all their working lives towards a pension, to be collected on retirement. It's not a freebie!

The Welfare State needs to be cherished and protected. The Tory Government have been trying to dismantle it for years. First the6 came for the old, then they came for the sick ..................etc

Not all older people are Tories. My country 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿did not vote for a Tory Government - look at the Tory Conference - didn't you see the number of young people there? The Tory Cabinet are not old people! Sunak is 42!

What an ignorant thread. I CBA to read all through the posts but A PENSION IS NOT A BENEFIT FFS!.

IDGAF if it's been said 100 times on here. I CBA to read such a dumbass thread!

Bore off @BeatieBourke

A pension is a benefit, it’s the biggest one there is.

Hang on, I have to work 35 years for that poxy pension. It is not a fucking benefit.

The pension rate in this country is a disgrace.

In Ireland it's €253 a week. €13,156 a year.

The facts are even if you took out of the equation the dodgy teachers pension which I think is about a grand a month, still another best part of a grand coming into that household. That came along just 5 years later so we are looking at 25 years of payments. Not bad for 15 years part time work.

Because you disincentivise saving for old age and make people totally dependent on benefits.
Unemployment is different as it is temporary. I know people who have been unemployed and not entitled to any benefits but it does not stop those people saving as it is a very temporary situation.
If state pension is mean tested, it makes sense to plan ahead and spend your savings before retirement age unless you are very rich.

Not a generation, your relative.

Then report the fraud.

Any government that introduces this policy will be out of government. It will be the poll tax of 2022.

Report to who ? The pension fund ? Who’s it with ?

@BeatieBourke the millionaire pensioner will have paid more in tax over their lifetime, but if they have other income in retirement they will also be paying tax on their state pension income. They may be the only retired people actually contributing to the pot in addition to taking from it.

I've waited an extra 6 years to get my pension whereas my older sister and sister in law had theirs at 60 and DH retired at 65. I don't feel I've been treated generously, quite the reverse. I'm still working because I need to until that money comes to me. I only have a small occupational pension like many women of my age group.