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?

Means testing the pension would be expensive , my husband pays tax on his work pension and that is fair and it takes into account his state pension as its over his personal allowance .

The employer contribution is part of the renumeration for the job. As another poster pointed out many public sector jobs often pay less and have fewer perks than jobs in the private sector.

You’d think he’d be pleased, wouldn’t you since it’ll be his money soon. Or perhaps he thinks she should give it to him now.

He should also be pleased that if his mum needs care at some point, she will be able to afford to buy in all the help she needs, or afford a good care home that has extra luxuries.

Odd that @hairbearbunches thinks that people who are able to "do very little"should not be allowed to have the comfortable income that they have spent their life building up.

But those are not promised to you no matter what.

In the case of the state pension, the government HAVE been saying that once you hit 35 qualifying years you WILL get the full state pension.

Many people die before or shortly after the age at which they can claim the state pension. My DH died just 4 months after his state pension kicked in at the age of 66, after working without a break since age 15.

I am barely managing now I'm state pension age - we had optimistically assumed we would have 2 state pensions coming in for at least a few years.
I have a very small widow's pension from my DH's work, and a tiny private pension from my own work (£600 / year). Back in the day women often weren't eligible to join the company pension because they didn't earn enough to qualify for entry.

Yes, but it's even more marked for mixed-age couples. They used to be treated as a pension age couple, so could get pension credit, now they're treated as working age.

That's how my (very experienced) colleague explained it, anyway. It's not really my area, as all my clients are referred by projects that deal with people of working age and my experience is very limited.

The UK will be utterly bankrupt by the time you can take the pension.

The real scandal is public sector pensions with £2.6 trillion liabilities which is larger than UK GDP. https://www.pensions-expert.com/Defined-Benefit/Public-sector-pension-bill-exceeds-UK-GDP-for-the-first-time?ct=true

Sorry to hear that, @primroseandplum .

I empathise. My DP died at 60, and had very little private pension provision, although I got a couple of small lump sums.

And he was between jobs, he was about to start a new job the week after he died. If he'd died a few weeks earlier, I'd have got a death in service pension of 50% of his salary, which would have been around £18k pa.

The issue is more about inequality - rather than blaming pensioners (or e.g. immigrants) for taking too big a slice of the cake. But that’s what Mr I’m Allright Jack would like you to get worked up about. We are drifting towards the USA economic model.

“For comparison, in the United States, which has more billionaires than any other country, the top 1% of earners take 20% of income and the bottom 50% of earners take 10%. The less inequality/greater equality in Europe is attributed to the fact that Europe has not let its market economy become a market society, where market forces control other areas of society such as education, health, and wages. Examples of this are social healthcare systems and more favorable labor markets.”
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/wealth-inequality-by-country

I am an NHS employee. I work incredibly hard to care for people. I contribute a significant amount from my relatively low salary for my pension. My pension payout is tied to state pension age as we were all forcibly migrated to the 2015 scheme. In return for years of hard work and service in looking after other people and years of paying in significant chunks of my salary I expect at least to be paid a pension that allows me to afford to live when eventually I do get to retire.

If it becomes means tested and dependent on savings, I will be massively PISSED OFF! Why should I work for little over min wage all my life but sacrifice the latest phone, the big house, the new car so I can be penalised?

Massive NO!

I do agree you deserve a pension, we all do, the real question is how it will be funded and how much it will pay out.

Will be interesting to see what the upcoming Labour government plan.

I came on to say exactly the same as @TheNoonBell . It's the public sector, final salary schemes that need to be stopped - £2.6trillion, above the size of the UK economy. Stop final salary schemes for new entrants to the civil service, but pay them wages more closely aligned with the private sector so they can make proper contributions to a DC scheme. Then everyone can still have their normal state pension at a sensible retirement age.

“had optimistically assumed we would have 2 state pensions coming in for at least a few years.”

For a different reason, there are going to a lot of unmarried and suddenly single people in the future I think - who assumed that their boyfriend’s larger pension was going to cover them both, and then they split up. At least for unexpected death you can plan with life insurance - not so a relationship being ended. Of course it’s not always the boyfriend with the better pension, but 🤷🏻‍♀️
It’s hard enough not being able to share the costs because you’re single when working. In retirement it can get a lot harder.

@edwinbear “Stop final salary schemes for new entrants to the civil service”

They did that 17 years ago!

@edwinbear My real fear is that a government will nationalise private sector pensions to cover the shortfall in the public sector and state pensions.

Final salary was stopped years ago.

It could well disappear. The state pension is a benefit and therefore subject to change, just like all benefits.

I am planning on the basis that at the very least my pension age will go up again (currently 69) and at the most it will no longer exist it its current form.

DH and I are a few years older than you. We don't think we'll get a state pension before we need to retire. It's just going to be that we must pay out of our private until we get our state one. Remember the initial state pension only pays for a few years. So for example, to make it work, we'll have to get it in our 80s.

@SpringBunnies “Remember the initial state pension only pays for a few years”

What do you mean?

Actuary here. I reckon it will always be there, but they will keep raising the state pension age. Politically no party can get rid of the triple lock, it would be political suicide, so they’re stuck with that, and that coupled with demographic changes will make the state pension more and more expensive. So it’s either raise taxes or raise SPA. Or both.

The problem with means testing is that it would discourage those who would only be able to save a small amount into a personal pension, or have only small savings.
Far better a flat rate (the same as pension credit would take it to), which is I think, what they are working towards with abolishing the serps, etc. I assume the age will rise until age 70.

The SP age is already too high eg look at the huge numbers of over 50s on long term sick? or the agism with employers?

Whats the point in increasing the SP age, if few actually work up until that age and are claiming expensive benefits instead?

We need a reassessment of taxation for the wealthy.

"He talks about how much his mother gets all the time."

Well doesn't he sound like a charmer?

Your language (e.g. the use of the word "creaming" to describe her pension) is really horrible as well.