To ask how many NI years of contribution you’ve missed?

[HedgeRin]

Conversation here between women- our theory is most women have missed a lot for various reasons. We don’t know anyone who actually made the full amount.

Im the lowest missed. So far three (all years of mixed studying and work, end of school, end of degree, end of masters). Overall I’ll go on to miss more in the future after the children turn 16 I reckon.

Friend one has 6 years earning under the limit.

My mum has missed 7 for various reasons

Friend two, self employed doesn’t want to check, but reckons it isn’t positive

Zero missed years here so far. 40 with 2 lots of DC & maternity leave.

I am 63 and only 3 years off retirement and have missed 8 due to early retirement. I have 44 in total. I need 3 more for a full pension so making them up using specified childcare credits for my grandchildren.

Thanks.
Its still not obvious even in the article, but you are right, it does appear that any additional years will reduce the impact of COPE.

Do you know by how much each year by any chance?

There is a lot of panicking about the deadline this year. Just to be clear under the new state pension scheme 2016 you only need 35 full years to qualify and any earned in the pre 2016 scheme have been transferred across. Anyone in their 30s has loads of time to make them up assuming they will continue to work until retirement. It is mainly people who are close to retirement who may want to consider buying add years.

I worked in a school p/t so my pension is peanuts, as not only was it p/t hours but p/t weeks too. So double whammy for me.

3 missed yrs while at uni.
Rest all full years only need 1 more yr. 3kids, NHS employed then SAHM for several yrs & now self employed.
When kids are under 16 you should have full yrs due to child benefit. Big reason to claim CB even If you need to repay due to high income.
If they're over 16 & you're not working then can hardly be surprised you've not had NI contributions

How do you check?
And can you pay the difference to make it back up?

I am shocked by how many people don't know how to access the information on their pension, have no clue as to why their NI is paid up (or not), and can't understand the difference between the years they have left to pay it and the actual number of years they need to pay.

On the Government Gateway there is a graph with a red line on it. It shows you how many more years of contributions you need to make. It also tells you what your pension would be at your current record of contributions, and how much it will be if you continue to pay in until you have full contributions.

Martin Lewis has an excellent guide to the Government Gateway on his site.

If you claim ESA you get class 1 National Insurance credits which count towards your state pension entitlement.

You have to earn £123/week to get NI credits, but you don't start actually paying NI until you earn £242/week or more.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/rates-and-allowances-national-insurance-contributions/rates-and-allowances-national-insurance-contributions

I think the government gateway information is not as clear as it could be. When I go in I see the £185 a week very clearly with 8 year’s contributions to make which is fine.

However further down the page it says ‘you were contracted out’ and only by clicking on that I see there is a reduction of £31 a week. It’s phrased very confusingly, essentially saying this part of your pension is paid as part of your private pension. I’d find it much clearer for the overall figure to be £154 as if I just look at that figure and my private pension estimate I would be double counting the £31. That’s a fair chunk of my private (career average) pension!

I'm confused about the total of 35 full years needed.

I'm 45 with 28 full years of contributions and one missing when I was 18. The gateway forecasts says I'll get full pension of £185.15pw if I contribute for another 2 years before April 2045 (23 years 😳).

That's only 30 years, not 35. Any idea why?

Only 4 incomplete years all while I was full time at uni.

You don't need to have full contributions, you just need a number of years before retirement so the gap doesn't bother me, I will have the maximum before I can afford to retire

It's taken me days to get into the gateway thing, what a palaver.
I think I'm ok as it says I cannot improve my forecast more? Is that right?
I'm so confused with pensions and think I'll be working till I drop as my pension pot us small, scares me that the average pot a few years you get than me is £77k and I do t have that
I'm currently paying in more than I ever have but with cost of living I'll have to reduce it down , is this the same as most people?
I'm always ready on here how people have thousands and it's scary

Ni is only covered by claiming child benefit while you're claiming for a child under 12

I have been researching this and found a thisismoney article that suggested that each additional year would reduce the COPE by approximately £5

Only if you are in full time education or an approved training scheme, or claiming a benefit that gave NI credits.

This will be most people though.

Ahh thank you, I thought that can't be right! So we only need to pay in 35 years, that's better. What happens if we do contribute for longer?

What happens if we do contribute for longer?

You help fund the NHS and other public services. Your pension won’t increase though.

I have got ten years missed and 26 years of full contributions. My missed contributions are mainly due to living overseas.

When I looked at this about a year ago, I am sure something told me that I had to make five more years of contributions to get full pension, but now it looks like I need to make another nine years of contributions. Shame as I am nearly 53 and didn’t really want to work another 9 years.

Overall....not sure. Working since I was 22 and paying NI but in an contracted out scheme until 2014 so now making up the years between now and when I want to retire at 60. Looks like i will be 1 or 2 years short of full pension by then so I will look to top up then if I can.

This is what baffles me - mine lists the years I was 16, 17 and 18 as incomplete and does not count them.

I was in full time education, at school doing my A-levels - but when I phoned up to query this the woman assured me it was right as I wasn’t working those years.

You need to have 35 years of full contributions for full state pension, so it won't matter if you have missed years when you were young. If I want to try and retire (on work pension initially) at 60, then I need to have my contributions from when I was 25 and onwards count and mine do, so I'm not worried about earlier years.

@zoinkss I'm the same. It's telling me I only need another four years' contributions to get the maximum pension but that only takes me to thirty years. I'm confused.

I don't know if it applies to you but the credits while in education stopped in 2010 apparently.