To be shocked if this is true . State pension and benefits …?

[Springtimesoo]

I have worked all my life apart from
4 year degree( 3 year plus prof qualification )
and
a period at home when I had 2 dc under two and we could not afford nursery fees.

have just checked my pension forcast Which says that although I have paid 35 years in full , i will not get a full pension .

it seems that to get a full pension i need to pay just over 3k .

my friend , who is by choice long term unemployed. ( long story) says that she will get a full pension as she is on benefits .

how is that fair ? Its not true is it ?

I am not going into details* but I'm grateful for the opportunity to pay in some missing contributions.

I've had to pull out £8K from my hard-scraped savings but it's worth it because it will make a near £70 difference per week to me (assuming that I don't die before or soon after pension age). Take a PP's advice: Check your pension forecast every year!

Even a missing week in one or two years can make a remarkable difference. One woman just had to pay a missing £15.17 and it makes a difference of > £127 p.a. to her future pension.

*Family business. Financial incompetence on an incomprehensible scale.

Personally I would rather sell my house and pay for a decent nursing home for my last few years than end up in some grim cheap as chips Council paid for place. And pension credit barely brings a state pension up to a liveable rate.

Exactly this. Also if in rented accommodation she will get her rent paid and also most of her council tax. Also free dentistry. Many people just over the threshold with a small private pension are very disadvantaged. Likewise their income will be completely untaxed as its all benefits, whereas those with private or workplace pensions will still be paying tax, council tax etc. Very unfair.

My position is that I had 41 years NI but was contracted out for significant periods, therefore I did not qualify for the full new state pension. Unfortunately I also retired early 2017 so purchasing qualifying years will be of no benefit. Very annoying, particularly as due to the 2011 pensions act my date for receiving the state pension was delayed by a further six months,on top of the years added for the 1995 act. I wasn't bothered about the 1995 act as there was plenty of notice, but the 2011 act was taking the piss as it was very short notice.

@lindyloo57 I would imagine he's making a fraudulent claim in that case and will face the consequences when or if caught? You have to convince a dwp/uc work coach, and a doctor and esa assessor (if disabled) none of whom are easily fooled or stupid so it's hard to see how these "lazy" people are getting away with it? There are also random checks similar to hmrc tax etc. I wouldn't like to live like that, constantly looking over your shoulder, but of course some will try. I believe way more genuine people get turned down and have to appeal for disability benefits, we should be more angry about that.

But often people selling their houses do end up in these places because the funds drain away so quickly. It isn’t a 2 tier system and many residents who pay for their own care are in the next room to somebody who has never paid a penny 🤷🏼‍♀️

And btw if you are in a council paid for home I believe they take your pension back to pay towards the cost, leaving you with a bit of pocket money every week. Nice.

As had been said on here numerous times , go online and check your status. You may well find that it is worth paying back some years - you need to calculate how much it will cost you, the benefit it will bring to your pension and how long you would need to live to make the repayment worth it.

I repaid and it has taken me 3 years to "benefit" from it but the other factor to consider is that your state pension benefits from the triple lock protection and eg the state pension will go up by 10.1% in April. You won't get that kind of interest on an amount of money sitting in a savings account like that.

Free expensive 24/7 medical care and an allowance? Why would you think somebody who has contributed little or not at all is ‘entitled’ to more than that?

it depends though if for all your life you have been on min wage etc it wont seem so bad rent paid etc not every body has a works pension

some wont see much difference and the add ons eg better winter fuel allowance/council tax can swing in their favour

If you have children and claimed family allowance/child benefit then those years count as full contributions

@viques you're in for a shock then. Nursing homes charge differently depending on whether you are self funding or the LA are paying. You could potentially be in the same nursing home paying £1000 per week and the person in the next room is being funded by the LA who are being charged £750 per week.... same staff same building but you are subsidising the fact that the LA have a limit to what they will pay

to add just look st the cost of living payment pensioner on tax crediit/AA were the best of and will continue into the nevt COLP

Call and get advice. I did and they were really helpful. For example I was short three years - the penultimate year was worth £5 per week in buy back, but for the same buyback the final year would only get me an extra £2 per week. So they suggested I consider whether it was worth it.

As people have said, get checking early and often. It’s very complicated and everyone’s situation is different.

Seems unlikely that your employer would be allowed to not pay NI contributions since 2016.

Do you work v low hours? Eg 7 per week.

For the same reason that I don’t moan that other people have had more benefit from the NHS than I have, because I have been healthy all my life , haven’t had a major accident and haven’t got a disability. It’s called a welfare state, it’s a damn good thing even one a s broken and barely surviving as our one , look at countries which don’t have one, if some people get more out than they put in then that’s how it is. I would rather that happen than see people living on rubbish tips selling tin cans to make a living.

👏👏👏

Deferring for a year adds 5.8% to your state pension. It would take you over 17 years to recoup the year you've lost. You'd be at least 83 before you got any benefit from that extra tenner a week.

I don’t understand though why, as I’m now fully paid up but don’t retire until 2037, can’t I use my NI contributions to keep topping up as extra for me?

Surely the logic for that to be a valid comparison is that EVERYONE on benefits has had a tragedy befall them that means they cannot work? True for some - definitely not all, a large number of them are piss takers who are workshy.

Because it's all factored in to the scheme. It relies on many of us paying in for more than 35 years and many more of us recieving pensions for less than 25 years (or whatever average age they use).

Why are we that have over paid suppose to subsidise your luxury of not starting work until you were in your 20s and taking time off to have children.
What a ridiculous post. No doubt the PP has paid those university years back and then some in a higher qualified career after the 'luxury of not starting work' earlier
And when was it ok to start bashing people who take time out to have a family? Ffs.

No it doesn’t follow. Though many of the people supported by the state “will” be unable to work because they are incapacitated by illness or disability, or are caring for someone who is, and incidentally saving the country many thousands of pounds while they do so for a pittance. But that’s another story….

Agree. In 30 years there won’t be any money for such frivolities, it’ll have all gone sorting out the large boomer contingent.

I’m planning on working til I drop.

Where are the figures for this "large amount" of piss takers? Or is this purely anecdotal bollocks like "my neighbour's niece has never worked due to a bad back and gets £3k a month" benefit bashing crap that gets trotted out every time a thread like this pops up?

Around 40% of people that claim UC are actually in work. That is a real large amount that it not workshy. The rest... most would be looking for work, or not able to work.

Have you ever worked in the public sector? Civil Service for example? If you did you would have been contracted out of the old SERPS and you would have paid a reduced NI contribution.