Why hasn't my pension years working changed over past years on my hmrc account? Said 6 years to keeping working

[Summerwashout]

For about 5 years? It says if I stop working now I would get 172 or thereabouts and another 6 years would get me the full amount but... It seems to have said for the past few years it's not going down?

Bump

I don’t understand.

Neither do i 😂.

I have an online hmrc thing where I can check tax and pension.
It seems to me it's said I need to work another 6 years to achieve the full weekly state pension when I come of retirement age.

However it doesn't seem to be reducing each year I'm working?

I'm in a low paid role skimming the 12500 per annum but I've paid ni for most of the past 6 years?

I think it only updates if you ask for a new statement. At least that is how it used to run

You need to have been paying NI for 50 out of 52 weeks of the tax year - is that the case for all of the past six years? If there are a few week gaps here and there you can ask for a statement of how much extra to pay and how much extra that will buy you.

Yes, you might have a few short gaps, which can happen eg if you’re on a zero hours contract and take some holiday.

There is a way to check up on gaps through your Government Gateway account IIRC. You can click through to a statement which says if the year is full or not, and if not how many weeks worth of credits you have in that year. If you have years that aren’t full you can pay voluntary contributions to fill the gaps which may be worth it for short gaps (each extra NI year gets you about £5.70 pension per week). I don’t know how you go about paying-I think you have to call them.

@titchy I'm not zero hours I work progress rata, so I work x weeks but get paid each month anyway (school)
Term time.
@jellycat thanks.

BTW I'm on the app so assumed it would be updated.

I had a few month s I think when I went under the ni amount but I'm back over it now and I thought that raising of ni wouldn't affect us?

The rules changed 6th April 2016, so maybe your forecasts have been affected by this (the suggestions other posters above have mentioned may still apply).

Until then you needed 30 qualifying years and it pays £156.20/week in 23/24. On top you might also receive State Second Pension S2P based on your earnings record.

In 2016 S2P was scrapped and the New State Pension was introduced which pays £203.85/week in 23/24, but you now need 35 qualifying years to receive the full amount.

Is this a new thing? Certainly this wasn’t the case just six years ago.

@Summerwashout you don’t need to have paid NI to get qualifying years towards your pension, you just need to have earned over the lower earnings limit in every month. It’s about £533/month. So it sounds like you shouldn’t have any gaps. Maybe have another look on gov gateway to see if you can see your detailed annual statements and if not you might have to call them.