State Pension

[JollyPollysjolly]

my Husband is sure that by the time we reach state pension age (me 45, him 49) that it will no longer exist - or maybe when we reach 100 ha! Anyone with any knowledge that can add to this idea so I can argue back?

@Iwasafool people always quote extremes to justify means testing the state pension. Except we all know what would happen. Initially only the very richest would be affected. But the threshold would remain frozen so that in the end many people would no longer be entitled to the state pension. It would end up that if you have savings over £16k you do not get the state pension until you have spent your savings.
We are not stupid. We know how these things work.

With people living so much longer the pension age needs to be adjusted accordingly. Frail and elderly folk don't seem to be allowed to slip away peacefully anymore. They are blue lighted to hospital, pumped with medication and sent back home /nursing home for a few more months of misery. I don't mean to be callous but i watched my mum endure the horrors of dementia but she was wise enough to get a DNAR while she still had capacity.
However there might be a turnaround coming along, with the current obesity crisis many folk won't get to pension age

@IClaudine what do you mean, if this is even true? Why wouldn't it be true? He talks about how much his mother gets all the time. It's an obscene amount for someone who is now doing very little. She doesn't need the state pension on top. All that happens is that the state pension she receives gets syphoned off to another savings account and squirreled away, because she has difficulty spending the £3k as it is.

If her income is £36k a year plus state pension she’ll be paying most of the state pension straight back again in tax. I really can’t see what the problem is.

@Hateam I don't care how rich anybody is. If they have paid 35 years' of NI they have purchased a full state pension. That is the deal.

It might be the deal but even 35 years of NI contributions comes nowhere near close to having 'purchased' your state pension even if you only draw if for a few years. Do you know how little NI contributions actually are? Pensions are paid for by the workers of today and there are fewer and fewer of them actually putting money into the pot.

I'm two years over state pension age. When I started work (1972), the basic tax rate was over 38%, so nearly double the current rate.

My state pension uses up almost all my personal allowance, so I pay tax on almost all my (gold-plated lol) £290 a month public sector pension. I'm still working part-time, so paying tax on all my earned income, too. And I work in welfare rights, so definitely don't blame "benefit claimants", I spend a lot of time ensuring that they get every penny they're entitled to!

My intention was to downsize and supplement my income with the remaining equity from my home, but having seen how much service charges are on flats I'm not convinced that that is really a good move.

If NI contributions are so little, why do people complain so bitterly about paying them? Unless the link is broken between a requisite number of years and qualification for a state pension it can only remain as a universal benefit. I paid NI for 45 years, basic rate tax for 30 years and higher rate tax for 15 years. You’ll wrench my state pension out of my cold, dead hands.

I guess Tory plans to remove NI might be the first step towards an attack on state pensions so be very careful what you wish for.

When you reach state pension age you will be in the largest group who are voting. Any government of any political part would shoot themselves in the foot if they stopped the state pension.

Exactly the same, except I started work a year earlier. From Hansard

income tax for the year 1970–71 shall be charged at the standard rate of 41·25

Then there was NI on top.

The other thing that is going to be a big challenge for future pensioners is that a higher proportion of them are likely to still be renting. They will need enough income to pay their rent, or benefits to cover it. That's not so bad if it's a social housing rent, but with 1-bed flats in much of the London and the SE costing £800 a month, the cost could be astronomical.

I have friends in their 40s who have given up all hope of ever being able to buy, and won't have an inheritance because their parents are in social housing. And even people whose parents own property may find it has to be sold and go on care home fees before they die.

More nonsense about NI contributions. The government set the rates workers paid,but was up to the government to increase contributions if they were insufficient. All you sanctimonious posters in here are in for a shock if you think your contributions to your work based pensions will pay you a decent pension. You need to pay far more than the basic rate. I had the good fortune to be in a final salary scheme but I still paid in 15%. If you are paying the minimum you'd better wake up. And leave the state pensioners alone. Do you want people to be destitute? Do you want even more people sleeping in the streets? What sort of society do you want to live in? And for the hard of thinking on here, NI stands for National Insurance i.e. an insurance scheme that pays out when required based on the payments made. It's pretty plain isn't it? Learn some history before you start shouting for a return to the workhouse system.

I agree, you'd have to be pretty frugal wouldn't you 😬. Even so according to this:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001xvp8?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile
You would need a pension pot of around a quarter of a million to achieve the income afforded by the state pension. Also in Australia everyone has to have a private pension, it's mandatory!
I have no idea what will happen but the situation is clearly unsustainable 😱

She must be paying a higher rate tax, which would wipe out her SP. Sp is not taxed ( if it is below personal allowance), but is added on to any other pensions for tax purposes.

The first time I knew what the income tax rate was, it was 8s 6d in the pound! (that's 42.5% for younger readers).

When I got my first job, I was on £990 pa, which was good money for a school leaver. I was so disappointed when I got my first payslip, and my net pay was less than £60, nowhere near the nearly £80 I was expecting.

Not quite a higher rate tax payer but getting close, added to which she’s not getting the new rate state pension but the old lower rate so, yes, most if not all her state pension goes straight back to the Treasury.

The nursing home is a mechanism with which to transfer the huge amounts of wealth locked up in property from said property and into the coffers of the nursing home owners.
THAT is what is driving the prolongation of life.
Or as they say . . . follow the money!

I agree with you about the motive behind the removal of NI.

It's not just pensions that might be at risk, either, but contribution-based benefits like maternity allowance and employment support allowance.

I hadn’t thought of that but you’re absolutely right. It certainly looks that way.

I honestly don't think they can keep hiking the state pension age because if it keeps going up, it will reach the point where not many people live long enough to claim it. Some people are living longer, but a significant proportion are living in poor health from an earlier age.

How many people do we all know who start to get significant health problems whilst still classed as "working" age. Those people either struggle through the final years at work while having deteriorating health or try and claim ESA / Pip to eke out enough to live on.

Some of those people die at an earlier age so they never get to retirement age and never see a penny of state pension or if they make it to state pension age they die relatively young I.e mid seventies or earlier.

Its a meagre pittance that barely allows pensioners enough to live on as it is, so I don't think they can reduce the amount paid either or freeze the amount so inflation then makes it worthless.

I definitely don't think they can combine raising the state pension age and reducing the amount paid / freeze the amount as then that becomes a con....people will effectively never get a state pension as they will either die before getting to qualifying age or they get to qualifying age and the amount they get is so small that nobody could live on it.

The cost of living is so high that a lot of people can't afford to pay in to private/ workplace pensions.

What extreme have I mentioned? I said 50 years ago people were saying there would be no pension when I reached pension age and in a 2nd post I said a £3k pension would be useful if you needed care. Nothing about means testing and I can't see what is extreme as both those statements are perfectly true.

I have no idea who is stupid but I have no idea why you posted that to me.

The conservatives are not going to get elected anyway.
Seriously if the state pension ever became means tested I am retiring tomorrow and cashing in my private pension.

Well that depends on how long I live.

If I live until 72, I'll have paid in more than I will be paid. If I live to 92, vice versa.

But that's irrelevant. The government have set the price of a full state pension not me. In less thN 1 yearcI will have paid the price. The full state penis is mine for as long as I live.

@Iwasafool sorry perhaps I tagged the wrong person?

The full state penis is mine for as long as I live.

😭 Brilliant typo.

Crikey