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 ?

There is no Serps now, that ended in 2002 and the state second pension ended in 2016. Now there is a flat rate of state pension that everyone gets as long as they have paid 35 years of full NI.

When the change over happened, if you had contracted out, a calculation was made to work out the state pension you had built up to that point, taking into consideration whether you had contracted out or not.

I don’t think contracting out now happens - pretty sure if you pay in to a work scheme you nowadays still get full state pension. Please don’t change your arrangements on the back of what you read on the internet.

Pretty sure contracting out was an 80s/90s thing - not now.

This probably explains it a lot better than I can!

www.gov.uk/government/publications/new-state-pension-if-youve-been-contracted-out-of-additional-state-pension/the-new-state-pension-transition-and-contracting-out-fact-sheet

How old are you OP; how many years of working life do you have left; and for how many years were you contracted out via your occupational pension? You may not need to pay the 3k now if you have enough time to make up your number of "full" years to 35.

Bringing your friend's situation into it is just muddying the waters - what you need to do is to work out your own pension situation and whether you really do need to pay 3k right now to make sure you have a full state pension in retirement.

I don't understand how this works unless you were making tonlittle to pay NI, can ya elaborate please?

In determining a person’s new State Pension their National Insurance record will be calculated under the old and new scheme rules when the new State Pension starts in April 2016. The higher amount becomes a person’s Starting Amount.

Both these calculations will take into account periods when people were contracted-out of the additional State Pension (State Earnings-Related Pension Scheme or SERPS between 1978 and 2001/02 and State Second Pension or S2P from 2002/03). This reflects the fact that when people were contracted-out they either paid National Insurance contributions at a lower rate, or some of the National Insurance contributions they paid were used to contribute to a private pension instead of their additional State Pension. In other words they did not pay the State for SERPS or S2P while they were contracted-out.

I think maybe people should be reminded of the benefit rates. A single person on UC with no children will get £334.91 per month. Rent is not paid automatically. There is a local housing allowance and you will not get any more than this. Most people's rents will exceed the LHA and the rest has to be paid out of your UC amount.

If you have a disabled child you get an extra £132.89 per month, this is as well as £290 per month for caring for a child. However, once your child is of a certain age this benefit will stop.

Getting disability benefits is not easy. You can't just go to the doctor and claim to be depressed and then get disability benefits.

If you get Carers Allowance this will be deducted from your UC amount.

There will always be people who play the system. The attempt by some posters to tar all those who receive benefits with the same brush is disgusting.

I do sympathise with those who are just over the benefit level as they are the ones who suffer the most. Also, the majority of people on UC are in work.

Perhaps if people were paid decent wages in this country then they wouldn't feel the need to take their anger out on those on benefits rather than on the government and the employers who have caused this situation.

Sorry for the rant but I really feel that some people have no idea what living on benefits is really like.

@CrazyLadie I was working full time but if you paid into certain employer pensions apparently the government let the employer and employee pay less NI. But you did not have a choice, it happened as soon as you joined the employer pension scheme. So unknown that means for the years we were paying into a private pension, we get way less state pension.

so if you were contracted out, did you lose the full year of contributions or a percentage of it? Just trying to make sense of my forecast. Also does child benefit cover the NI only up to the age of 12?

The government gateway projections are confusing. The projected figures are the state pension you can expect to receive including the COPE you get from any contracting out from private pensions. In my case it is projecting the full state pension of 185.15 per week but if I click through at the bottom of the page about being contracted out it says my COPE is £7.89/week. I can therefore expect to receive 185.15-7.89= 177.11/week state pension and then the other £7.89 I should receive as part of the private pension that contracted out some of the NI contributions.

Martin Lewis recently did a whole tv program on this. Worth watching as he said in most cases it was well worth paying. The assumption is that women on average live 21 years after pension age.

That sum did not format well but basically you subtract the COPE amount from the projected amount and that is the amount you will receive from the state.

@Silversalt The 21 years is based on a lower retirement age. Retirement age is now 68, most women do not live until 89.

@Rocket1982 I don't think you're correct in this - my undersatnding is the government gateway tell you the COPE amount for info, but the amount you get is the amount on the main page. So if your forecast says you will get £185, then that's what you get, as long as you contribute whatever NI it states you still need to pay in.

(My assumptions are based on seeing this same question discussed on the Money Saving Expert forum, very useful place to look up stuff about pensions).

you can only top up missing years over the past 6 years.

You can currently go back to 2006/07.

It's from April 2023 that you will only be able to go back six years.

Hence the push to top up if need be from any of the previous ten years.

I'm going to top up a year where I'm £230 short, which will give me three years buffer over the next 14 years for any years I might not pay NI for whatever reason. I'll get my pension in twelve years' time (maybe.....).

Have a look at the WASPI f/b page ,the amount of women in that group who have worked for 50 years ( left school at 16) and still won't get a full State pension.
Their campaign is not about the age rise to 66, it is about the lack if information and notice given to allow people to prepare for a massive age hike from 60-66.

I think younger people might be aware now of how Govt can change things quietly without people being made aware.

If I was relying on a state pension I would not be voting Tory, the think tanks are already discussing this.

Will you not get homecare creditS? Is that not a thing in the uk.
I worked in the Uk for 10 years, was not working while in receipt of children's benefit so I can get ''home care credits'' in Ireland. I will have worked about 24 years by 67 or 68 so I will juuuuuust by the skin of my teeth get a full contributory pension. I can import my UK credits!

I would have thought they differentiate in the UK too? Because it's so much better to have a contrib pension, it's not means tested, you can take it to a cheaper part of Europe.
If you get the means tested pension you have to stay in the country, it'll get reduced if you have any other means at all.

I don't think that is right. If you pay enough contributions you will get the full state pension, regardless of whether you contracted out or not.

The COE will be the equivalent of the additional State Pension you would have got if you had not been contracted out and will be included in you workplace or private pension.

So I was contracted out (SERPS) at 18 or 19 and I’m now 51. I don’t intend to retire for ages and I left that company years ago.

I get yearly pension statements etc from the private pension company but is there anything else I need to do?

It always amazes me that people don't actually try to find out the rules of a contract they are in. It wasn't that you would have less, at the time you would have the full pension but you wouldn't have the SERPS or S2P, you still get that equivalent of that if you qualify. You haven't lost anything.

Yes. Check how much state pension you have built up and whether you have enough time to contribute in order to get the full amount. Which you very likely do!

www.gov.uk/check-state-pension

Why do you have to find it in 6 weeks?

My friend came to this country in the year 2000. Until 2006 when she retired she only had low pay part time work. She was awarded pension credit so received a full state pension the same as mine.

I'd lost mine too but you can phone the DWP future pensions team 0800 731 0175. I managed to get through (option 3 I think it was) fairly quickly. They will send you your forecast and discuss it with you once you receive it. I got mine through the post today.

Silversalt perhaps paid the (now defunct) reduced NI contribution rate that used to be called the "small stamp" or "Married Womens Stamp" The wife would only get a half-pension, based on her husbands contribution record.

EVERY WOMAN, single or married, working or not, retired or not, needs to check out her own state pension credited NI record so she can challenge it if it's wrong, and get it corrected. Or take the opportunity to top it up and get a beter pension.