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?

Women Against State Pension Increase (For Ourselves Only - Everyone Else Can Fuck Off And Die Before Claiming A Pension But Get Ours Paid).

WASPIFOO - EECFOADBCAPBGOP .... not got the same ring, I guess. lol

So people aren't allowed to represent themselves, but have to represent everyone? What bizarre ahem, thinking.

Here we go again! So someone who has worked all their lives gets £800 a month pension (if they have paid enough NI contributions) but a single mum who has never worked or paid NI gets UC which may be less than said pensioner, where’s the logic in that ffs. That same single mum who may never work ever will get their pension when they retire, maybe everyone on UC should never get a pension, why should they, they’ve had their pension early! For what it’s worth I’m taxed heavily on my private pension, you know that private pension I’ve already been taxed on before! I don’t get my government pension yet as the age keeps going up….probably using it to support all those on UC at the moment!

How are you taxed twice on your private pension?

When I started work at 18 my NI contributions were paid on the basis that I would retire at 60, the same for my occupational pension, by 60 I would have paid more than the maximum 40 years that you could get paid out in your occupational pension. Sadly I had to retire age 46 due to ill health but I looked at the pension forecaster for my occupational pension & working the additional years wouldn't have made a massive difference to what I get paid now as my pension was enhanced to 30 years service. My pension gets enhanced by whatever the rate that state benefits & pensions get uprated by. When I finally get my state pension at 67 together with my occupational pension I will get roughly the same amount as I would have got if I still worked full time.

Given that you actually have to apply to receive your state pension I wonder how many people never claim it and if that information is published anywhere?

What, ahem, bizarre thinking by the so-called WASPI women that anyone, anywhere, would give a single flying fuck about their 'plight' of being uniquely incapable of working until 67 based solely to their birth date.

Particularly so when they were casually accepting/relishing that everyone else should work until they drop, and LIED in order to attempt to achieve this, so long as they got their pension when they wanted it.

I call it the last and, fortunately, failed Hurrah Of The Boomers. 😀

Because I was taxed on it while I was working, and I’m taxed on it now!

Yes, I worked from when I was 16, and received my state pension at 66. I also get a private pension.

I paid in for both.

i'm taxed on my income, worked all my adult life, and feel no guilt about claiming what I paid in for. That was the contract, although when I started work, I was promised a full pension at 60. That didn't happen.🙄

We all pay in for stuff we are not getting or will never get. That's the system.🙄

@Lemonlady22 your pension is your first but of income when assessing for tax, it's falls within your personal allowance and is not subject to tax.

Your personal allowance is more than the state pension.

No you were not taxed twice - pension contributions attract tax relief. HMRC increased your contributions by the basic tax rate. You only pay tax when you draw the pension - and only if your income exceeds the personal allowance.

What, ahem, bizarre thinking by the so-called WASPI women that anyone, anywhere, would give a single flying fuck about their 'plight' of being uniquely incapable of working until 67 based solely to their birth date

Not the point they made.

Particularly so when they were casually accepting/relishing that everyone else should work until they drop, and LIED in order to attempt to achieve this, so long as they got their pension when they wanted it

No doubt the relish exists in your mind, but what was the lie?

What, ahem, bizarre thinking by the so-called WASPI women that anyone, anywhere, would give a single flying fuck about their 'plight' of being uniquely incapable of working until 67 based solely to their birth date.

Looks like someone, somewhere does give a fuck.

www.bbc.com/news/election-2019-50534118

Sorry I miss read that as you're taxed twice on state pension. As pointed out you attracted tax relief on the premiums going in. You also get 25% of the fund tax free.

People keep harping on about millionaires getting state pension but as it has to be claimed how do you know they actually bother to claim it? They will also have paid lots more tax into the system.

Anyone advocating means testing needs to be aware that when such testing has been in place for some time, the numbers sucked into increase massively.
When the pension was partially means tested previously (indirectly) it meant for many there was no limit in saving, which then drives more into poverty.
universality is cheaper to administer - think of the government department, the pensions (!), the fraud, the sheer admin involved.

I think you’ll be surprised how much even relatively wealthy people rely on the state pension. It’s a large part of most pensioners in one now that DB schemes have all but gone, this will only increase.

-*no POINT in saving

Shes had a 25% government contribution towards the private pension, plus compounded unearnt capital gains. People do chat shit.

You're not "stressed" because of the work though are you? If you were you'd have gone sick during the month. You're "stressed" because you didn't get paid. Yes your boss is a dick, but so are you for going sick out of spite, now your colleagues are doing your work aswell as working more than they should for the dick boss

@luxxlisbon - I totally agree with you. Pensions were first brought in when people didn't live nearly as long. If women want equality there can be no reasonable argument about it. And there's a good case for women having a higher retirement age. The retirement age will soon be 70 I expect.

@BeatieBourke - so you admit further on that you don't know much about it and yet you title your thread with goady capital letters.

I'm one of those women affected by the change of state pension age from 60. As @Blossomtoes explains it was the second increase at very short notice that was unacceptable.

Regarding the first increase, yes I was aware of it - had about twenty years notice and planned accordingly - no problem at all. However the second increase just a few years before state pension was due to be paid was an absolute piss take by George Osborne, and the Government absolutely should be called out by WASPI over it. If they can do it to us without consequence, then they can do it again to others.

Women working then did not have an equal playing field that women now take for granted. Many got caught out by paying the reduced NI, had no right to join company pension schemes and there was no childcare available as such. Having said that it was still a shock to my daughter when she had her first child and how hard it was. The huge childcare fees today disadvantage so many. We live in a very unfair society, skewed by the Tories to favour the very wealthy and their mates. Everyone should have a state pension - it's a very low amount indeed. Those engaged in a race to the bottom stating that people with private pensions should be means tested out of a state pension are playing into the Tories hands. They always find the money for their own pet projects.

It’s not all I would get but my personal pension provision has not been what it could/should because we had no income to spare thanks to huge childcare costs for ten years or so.

No expectation of an inheritance because all funds are being eaten up by care home fees.

Well then again with the greatest of respect we’re not talking about you are we ?

One option that seems fair to me would be to freeze state pensions -not increasing them according to the triple lock, in practice a cut- and give all pensioners on low incomes -those that do not reach the income tax threshold- a supplement to compensate them for loss of earnings.

And when the economic cycle allows, increase the state tax by a reasonable amount.