Pensions… again

[GoodnightAdeline]

https://amp.theguardian.com/money/2024/apr/08/uk-state-pensions-benefits-changes-april-triple-lock-rise

Another pension increase we can’t afford when working people are grappling with the cost of the country.

What will be the endgame in all this? Where will we be in 20 years?

But surely you acknowledge there is no 1 thing the government can do to plug such a large gap and it will be made up of smaller things? This policy is doing extremely well in the circles I move in (early 30s).

It could have gone a lot further if they wanted intergenerational financial equalisation - removing the triple lock for a start. And the £10 “Christmas bonus” which would have saved another £110 million. I’m already pissed off with them for not removing the two child benefit cap.

Those people are my age and you clearly have absolutely no clue. I don't have a 'full working history' either some some bugger changed the rules about women when it was too late for me to retrain and I am now disabled. Yes, women work part time but many go back full time.

Jobs/careers doesn't matter. Women went back to work.

What do I have ‘no clue’ about? The stats speak for themselves, I think we all know women in previous years are much less likely to have paid 45 years of unbroken tax.

Blossomtoes was the one who said it mattered

The fact is pensioners are the wealthiest demographic and even then they’re not removing the fuel payment from the most vulnerable. If we aren’t going to end what is for many a totally needless and luxury concession then how DO you think we should funds things that desperately need it?

Yes but it's complicated. It's not as simple as women sitting at home for years. I don't have 45 years of NI contributions as I and others, though were were paid up to the max, long gone. It was only when I came to check at state pensionable age that I realised the goalposts had moved so fundamentally and I had a few missing years from 62-66. I simply didn't know and people I spoke to, didn't either.
Also, what stats? Can you quote? Years out of the labour force? Many women are long term carers for children/the disabled and the elderly. I did look at the recent stats for those.

Ah sorry

You haven’t presented any meaningful stats.

At least you have 40 or 50 years to make sure you have a (non-state) pension when you retire, assuming you are correct that there will not be a state pension, although I think getting rid of state pension will always be a political hot potato. Current pensioners do not have the option to amass a private pension. And you seem to want to get rid of the thing that would guarantee you a state pension in the future, self fulfilling prophecy if you get your wish.

Exactly. The more people saying they don't expect to get a pension in 30 years, the more likely that is to happen as the population will be seen to have been softened up to accept it. Fight now for pensions to stay inviolable, or you're right - they won't exist.

Also, telling people that if they pay into something (and yes, we all know there is no 'pot', but that doesn't matter - the money was taken anyway) and you'll get a pension at 60, then shifting the goalposts over and over, then suggesting that if you've made any sort of private provision you'll get nothing is not a good way to encourage trust between population and a government which rules by consent. If they take pensions away (whether they are deemed to be 'needed' or not) what will happen next? Scrap the NHS and free education?

I find Rachel r very unnerving.

The manner and tone is scary and I wonder what's coming next.
It's no surprise she's gone for union support, that's obvious in a labour gov. But she sounds hard and unrelenting re nimbys/house building/ pensioners /tax raids.

I wasn't a fan of Jeremy but I am starting to miss him with every day.
What is coming next?

I don't see any immediate threat to pensions. The government that abolished them would be unelectable forever. However, continuing with the triple lock indefinitely is a sure fire way of ensuring the government revisits SP age as continued increase above inflation/AEI is unsustainable and unfair.

My feeling is that Jeremy Hunt had the right idea in gradually phasing out NI to equalise taxation between income from employment and other taxable income sources. No one has ever made a good argument to me why an income can be paid from a pension, investment portfolio, property etc. suffering less taxation than someone who earns their income in the form of wages. The dial is already in the favour of the non-worker (pensioner or independently wealthy taking income from assets) against those who earn their money, so I don't see equalisation of tax as a kick in the teeth to pensioners, more a leg up for workers.

I'm sure we could come up with a good way of measuring state pension entitlement through income tax payments or whatever, NI is just a tax on employment income, not a contributory pension scheme.

People in their 80s most certainly lived through the war and those in their late 80s are very aware of living through it as children.

As for those of us who are Boomers - well, I guess the reason that so many of us hark back to it is because we have relatives who lived it.

My dad carried shrapnel all his life in his arms. He nearly lost his legs and had trouble all the rest of his days. He worked as a coalminer. God knows how he managed that job, but he did.

Because of what my parents went through I had an awareness of the war. Of course, I don't expect younger people to have that.

Dad did manage to save up to buy his own one bedroom cold-water flat on his wage, but that's because he didn't marry until he was 34 and saved every penny. (Mum was the same age.). Ironically, the flat was demolished to make way for a car park. He got £400 for it in 1972. Not enough to buy a replacement.

People who talk about the war are often remembering what they heard from relatives. As for those of us who were post-war, living conditions were significantly poorer than they are now, at least for working class people.

The horrible reality is that the only reason that there were plenty jobs is that so many were killed during the war and people were needed to rebuild the country and economy. Contrast that with the post-Great War recession where jobs were so few that my FIL had to sell his Military Medal and then emigrate to New Zealand to send money back to his family.

Life for subsequent generations has had its own challenges, but if you're older I think you often don't understand the difficulties. I do become exasperated, however, when younger folk talk about housing problems and think that all Boomers had it easy. Maybe the middle classes. The "lower" classes certainly didn't.

For those of us from working-class families where houses without bathrooms were the norm, it's hard to be sympathetic when young folk with two of a family are complaining about the mortgage for a five-bedroom house because they expect to have a Games Room and a Media Room. (I have no idea whether that's the norm, but it's what was happening in my old place of work. I made the mistake of telling an older colleague that I'd finally paid off the only house I've ever lived in and a younger middle-manager who'd overheard started to complain. He'd bought a large detached house in a "good" area.)

Yes, I expect each generation to strive to have a better life than the previous one. I just find myself being dismayed at being told how easy us oldies had things. The Yorkshiremen sketch is funny because it mocks those who complain after building a comfortable life, but it's built on a certain amount of reality for many people.

It was certainly harder for women to hold down a full-time job since so many of them were unemployed carers. In the days before working-class people had access to carers, my mother finished up providing the care for both her parents, two great-uncles and a great-aunt. (The great-aunt had been the primary carer for the previous generation.)

People on any benefits will get the same rise too. Do you think they shouldn't get the increase either or is it just pensioners you dislike?

@WearyAuldWumman yes, some in their 80s would have been alive during the war, but would have been very small children at the time. Believe me I have the utmost respect for those who fought and lived through the war and grew up on the stories. I realise rationing went on for several years and it wasn't beer and skittles for many. My objection though is WASPI women and similar aged people bringing the war into it to slap down youngsters who really are getting the rough end of the pineapple at the moment. If they don't remember Anderson shelters or storming Normandy beaches, STFU about it, you weren't bloody there!

How I see it is that statistically, pensioners are the wealthiest demographic. The OBR estimates that 27% are millionaires. I acknowledge that SP isn't much to live on, and that the triple lock is a mechanism to bring SP to a more reasonable level over a period of time. But it is hard for younger people to accept year on year increases using the very best measure, so that increases are always on a par with inflation or AEI. Furthermore, if it is only SP that you have, you have made no provision throughout your working life, raising the question of whether it is the states sole responsibility to fund retirement?

Couldn't agree more. You have worked long and hard most of your life and deserve your pension. I'll get my SP in 4 years time and will then pay more tax.

"Furthermore, if it is only SP that you have, you have made no provision throughout your working life, raising the question of whether it is the states sole responsibility to fund retirement?"

I get my state pension next year, DH got his last year. We both had enough qualifying years- although only just for me. Like many women I worked part time (no child care) in a variety of jobs, sometimes paid in cash, so had to top up my contributions.
There were no workplace pensions for huge numbers of working class people- office staff and management yes, but not everyone else. As for the self employed trades, there were a few private companies offering pension plans- few of which lived up to the promises made at the time. With the ups and downs in the economy it was all to easy (and at times vital if you needed money for the mortgage and food!) to miss payments or only pay the minimum.
So with the best will in the world, many people my age tried to provide for our retirement, but still rely on our state pension.

What do you suggest for all of us who paid our taxes and NI contributions, in my DH's case since just before his 16th birthday, should we just quietly starve or freeze to death? Should we just live in abject poverty? Perhaps you would like to see a return of a modern workhouse, we could sew mail bags or something.
Or perhaps the length of time a pension is paid for could limited to say 5 years- then after then a cull?

In many cases, people only have SP because there was no WP for them and their wages were too low to provide one.

My dad did have a workplace pension. That mineworkers' pension combined with his SP was so low that he paid no tax.

Furthermore, if it is only SP that you have, you have made no provision throughout your working life, raising the question of whether it is the states sole responsibility to fund retirement?

Would people say the same in regards to benefits? If you make little to no effort to fund yourself throughout your working life is it the responsibility of the state to fund you during it?
Some people never work. Or never work enough to get enough NI contributions to fund a full state pension. So instead they get pension credits. At least those on a full state pension tend to have worked enough to fund at least that.
So if the state will fund those without any/ enough NI contributions to qualify for a pension, then yes it should fund those that haven't provided an extra pension on top of the state pension.

@WearyAuldWumman which makes me glad that auto-enrolment was introduced. Young people need the message that the earlier they start the better, and pub talk like "my house is my pension" needs debunking. As bad as your dad's situation was, there is only so much money to go around, and young people must be sick of it going to pensioners year on year.

Young people can earn money. Old people can’t. A civilised society prioritises its vulnerable members, that’s the old, the young, the disabled and the sick. Not fit, healthy people in their prime.

I don't argue against a good deal for older people. What I do say is that there needs to be an acknowledgement that the triple lock cannot stay forever and that more than 25% of pensioners live in millionaire households while working people are double taxed and are struggling to pay rent despite having good jobs.