Can’t just be me who is sick of the moaning about the private school VAT and winter fuel payments

[TruthorDie]

The moaning about them seems to be never ending. So tone death and indulgent on both counts. Not sure which is worse. A friends mum was ranting on social media earlier about winter fuel payments being stopped and how “worried about being cold” she was. Bad news is Lynn you haven’t needed to work since 1989, married to an oil exec and have had lots of the good life. I’m sure all of your Florida holidays keep you warm enough!

Bright children can get on anywhere, my siblings and l went to a comprehensive. We all have a couple of degrees, one of us has a PhD so it didn’t hold us back too much in life. Before anyone comes at it from the neurodiversity angle then l am and l wouldn’t be surprised if my younger sibling isn’t

Eloquently put, but your point is moot.

Some like to outsource responsibility and ownership. ‘I shall have four kids because it’s my inalienable right etc’.

Often with little thought as to how they plan to house, feed and school their offspring, and the impact on the children themselves.

And we see the consequences everyday - often in the press, with poorly raised children becoming poorly behaved adults.

I’m back. Now, where were we?

OK, so working in the public sector for 40 years, making 17k the entire time, 1/60 means an annual pension of 11,333 without state pension.

In order to buy an annuity of £10,325 annually, you need a pension pot of £165k (no cash lump sum).

how many people in the private sector have even that?

The cap is two children.

If your parents were earning less than people on benefits, they would have been entitled to Family Income Supplement or Family Credit, which replaced it in 1986.

Quite a lot will, especially since auto-enrollment

@SugarandSpiceandAllThingsNaice

that is interesting, do you have any data / link showing the expected pension pot for someone on a similar salary? Or a scalable one?

can private sector employees opt out? If so, should we allow public sector employees to opt out against a pay raise?

in any case, someone now on state pension only is probably not an ex public sector employee….

also, the private sector employees have defined contribution pensions. There is no guarantee whatever about returns, development, final pension pot or what annuity they can buy.

public sector employees have a guaranteed, inflation linked, CPI linked income for life….

Public sector employees can usually opt out of the pension scheme. Rules vary on ability to opt back in.

It’s hard to project as the auto-enrollment with employer contribution into DC pensions has only been around 12yrs. This is a move to make occupational pensions more equitable between the private and public sectors.

Certainly more than enough money is being contributed to result in a higher pension than the public sector ones have, however the DC pensions have all the risk of the market and so depending on crashes, recessions OR fabulous returns, the average pension pot after 40+ yrs of contributing is an unknown and depends on how optimistically or pessimistically pension pot growth is projected.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/workplacepensions

The above is done with the census, so not very often.

in any case, someone now on state pension only is probably not an ex public sector employee….

hah you’d be shocked at how many female OAPs were indeed former public servants but due to social pressures forcing them to become SAHMs and then also forced stop work in their early 50s due to social pressures again forcing them to care for elderly parents/older husband, …never got the full 25yrs or more minimum years of service to qualify for a public sector pension.

Thank you for the link - super interesting! One thing to note though is that there is NO open defined benefit pension in the private sector. It is considered unaffordable. So the value which included inflation link and CPI link is huge.

@SugarandSpiceandAllThingsNaice I think you are right with regards to it being a lot of women. I don’t have a minimum required service for my public sector pension - but different sectors may be different?

I would only argue that women are almost always the worst off financially, in all groups - across socioeconomic levels. Public or private, women take on childcare and elder care responsibilities- and suffer financially for it.

There are staff shortages because the working conditions are shockingly bad, regardless of a pension collectable in 40 plus years, salaries are poor too.
I'm not sure you can making such sweeping statements in regard to poverty in retirement without something to back it up? it would all depend on their salary, years in the the public sector and if they were renting or mortgage free.

I support higher pay for teachers and NHS staff, not longer hols or more WFH, i don't think any poster has called more of these have they?

VAT on fees? i'd be more sceptical of its worth if sooooooo many obviously v well posters didn't moan so much.

WFA ? i was in support of this policy until i saw the net gain, around 800m, v small reward for an awful lot of political pain, also the amounts people, even on pc are expected to live off are very low.

As i said, a better way is to reduce energy unit pricing.

‘And we see the consequences everyday - often in the press, with poorly raised children becoming poorly behaved adults.’

indeed. Many children, brought up in privilege lack empathy, are arrogant and rude, taking that air of superiority from their private school or worse, boarding school, into the real world as adults.

Most children in state and private sector are kind and helpful to others. I don't think we can say the 20% in private school in sixth form are worse or better in terms of empathy. Most societies end up with some kind of rankings - Indian caste system, in communist china under the cultural revolution times they tried to send the children of the intelligensia to work as refuse workers in the countryside to try to eradicate children being like parents but it tends not to work. The UK compared to many nations has fairly good chances for all which is perhaps why we have 18m more people here than when I was born, record immigration and are crammed to the rafters with hardly any housing.

I haven't seen any more details since last month's Technical Note - assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66a7a1bdce1fd0da7b592eb6/Technical_Note_-_DIGITAL.pdf

Some of the most F’d up people I’ve ever met were the product of boarding schools and wealth.
I do wonder what it is about wealthy people that make them think that outsourcing their children to institutions is okay. Particularly when they have the resources to look after their children themselves, well, with help, at home.

These are sweeping generalisations.

Equally, some of the best kids I’ve met have come from wealthy backgrounds, where their parents were well aware of the advantages they had been given. They were excellent young people as a result, because they had been taught.

Your experiences, and mine.

Ok 2 senecios.
2 people both able bodied.
One works their entire working life and chose to make sacrifices so as to pay into a private pension. The other does not.
Why should the one who chose to spend, spend spend and not save be rewarded?
Trust me there are many people who have not worked hard. Yet they are entitled to many things which others who have not had more than them aren’t.
Getting to live for free or very little by having your rent paid. Getting a reduction in council tax. Receiving money towards your fuel bills.
How on earth is that acceptable?

Because the alternative is having elderly people starving or homeless, and having octogenarians routinely dying of poverty is poor optics for a developed country...

There are not going to starve though are they?
Missing a few meals doesn’t lead to starvation. Yes I am serious.

Again, these are not people who have had to work full time until they are 71 before claiming a state pension. What happens when the majority of people decide to stop working at say 50?
Should the tax payer pay for all their rent? Council tax? Prescriptions? Heating? Food?

Some of these posts are pure poverty porn. Like a holiday to North Korea, or watching an episode of Benefits Britain.

They smack of a Monty Python sketch, ‘When I were a lad we used to live in’t shoebox in’t middle o’t road…’ etc

All to make a point.

Missing a few meals wont pay their rent etc will it?

The SP is around 12k, outside of London, a one bed property could be 750 to 1000 per month in rent.

Leaving your feckless pensioner or workshy 50yo leaving on what and where?

Even your hard working person who saves a modest pension, lets say £500 a month (around 150k pot and an annuity) will be left with SFA to live on unless they are in their own home but even then, it wont be life of luxury, they get no support what so ever.

Have you heard of housing benefit? That is a benefit that pensioners claim for help towards their housing if they can't afford their rent. It is unlikely to cover all their housing costs unless they are on pension credit, but they would get a good proportion paid if only on 12k a year.