What do you think will happen to the state pension in the future?

[Darkling1]

I’ve heard people say that it may be means tested in the future. I’m in my late 20s and wonder what the state pension will look like years from now.

I’ve recently started to invest a small amount into a SIPP each month. I can’t help but worry about the state pension, especially as the age keeps rising.

I think the age of state pension will continue to rise over time. I can see it being pushed to 75 by the time I’m eligible to claim.

What do you think will happen to it?

I never thought about state pension when I was in my 20s. I concentrated on building a good enough pension so that I could retire anyway in my 50s. Its not easy but you do need to.plan, now.

You really have no notion of how some people have to live through no fault of their own, do you? And even less interest.

Easier to tar those who have nothing left over at the end of the month for a private pension after the little things in life such as bills and food are paid for as ‘entitled’ and ‘workshy’ than attempt to understand why people might be doing their best yet still falling short. I just hope you never fall on hard times yourself.

No, I have very little sympathy.

Get a second job, go to night school and qualify in a trade, there’s lots of opportunities when you stop complaining and take some risk.

We are far too soft, have become far too generous. It has created a low ambition, dependency style economy; with low productivity, and maximum entitlement.

No one who is capable of doing some work should be funded to do nothing. I’m old enough to remember benefits inspectors visiting households to see if they were genuinely in need. We had a few months, in the 70s, in rented housing, when I was pregnant with DC2 and DH lost his job. After giving up a lot to move away from our families with a young family, it wasn’t a pleasant time. But we didn’t expect it to be. It was a real incentive for DH to find work.

Nowadays in these circumstances he could limit how many hours he worked, I wouldn’t be under an obligation to work and we’d get top ups, free childcare, etc., etc. So much that has been done to help poorer families has backfired. Instead of a short term stop gap, unemployment benefits are seen as a way of life by some. Why put in any effort to just make a few quid more than is available from taxpayers, especially when the cost of going to work is factored in.

seymour 5 does this suggestion - “no one who is capable of doing some work be funded to do nothing’ - apply to pensioners?

There’s nothing magical about reaching 66 or 67 that makes people suddenly incapable of doing some work. Are you against the state provision of a universal basic retirement income?

Ignoring your ridiculous second paragraph as I’m just not going to waste keystrokes, what would you say to someone who had done all the things you mention in your first paragraph (assuming they weren’t prevented by childcare requirements from things like second jobs and night school, something you conveniently didn’t bother to factor in) and was still struggling to put bread on the table. Would you call them soft, dependent and entitled?

I would say, that society does not owe you endless amounts of welfare.

Where did I say that this hypothetical person expected any such thing? Interesting that you automatically assumed that was what I meant, when I was actually attempting to point out that hard work doesn’t always suffice.

Funnily enough, the people in low paid physically jobs, who a PP said should just get a second job, would more than likely physically burnout before retirement and end up on benefits anyway.

Working 2 jobs (unless both are part time, obviously) should not be the norm. May as well live in work if all you are using your house for is to sleep in.

I’m not against a state pension, I’m more concerned with those not working at a younger age.

Ageing takes it’s toll on our bodies and minds, few in their 70s could compete with the young or middle aged. Part time after retirement age worked for me, it topped up my very minimal state pension (I was short of contributions), and a modest occupational pension. It was a choice, based on some necessity.

So if hard work doesn’t suffice, you want other peoples money given to you in benefits?

Sounds fair.

Welfare system was set-up to assist those who needed help in their hour of need, and a state pension for those who have gradlfted throughout their working lives. That is the important part those that have grafted I.e those that have put in the effort.

It has morphed into a free for all for those with a slight need for all of their lives I.e no graft.

We need to get back to what it was intended for - tighten the controls (no wage top ups and state pension based on your contributory years) or replace it with a new model. Start phasing it out over the next 30 to 50 years. We need to do it now but with adequate notice.

If we do neither there will be NO welfare system for anyone.

The UK does have the balance of fairness wrong.

I don't think working is valued enough frankly. I do wonder if we all start paying more tax (not just higher earners) if people might start to take a more critical look at what you can get by not working.

I totally agree. Having everyone contribute in some way, I think would make a happier society for all. I don't understand how left-wing people can't see that it is in some people's nature to take the easier route of going on benefits - and then get stuck as if you are 40 you cant really build up a pension or save for a house.

And another thing these 'everyone's just workshy' types are failing to take into account is the impact on the NHS (and, yes, potentially the overall economy), further down the line, if people end up ill/disabled earlier in life as a result of excess work and stress. Although they'd probably say they should just buck up and haul themselves up by the bootstraps regardless.

Show me one single place on this thread where I have said one word about benefits. (And just in case you mean me personally by 'you want other peoples money given to you in benefits', I work and have my pension provisions sorted out, HTH.) You won't be able to because it's not what I am arguing for on this thread. You're just desperate to shoehorn a bit of good old-fashioned benefits bashing into this thread in any way you can when the topic of the thread is supposed to be what will happen to pensions, not to benefits.

I think you're being deliberately disingenuous now and that you know full well I'm saying the solution is to end the ridiculous low pay culture in this country, particularly given the current cost of living, so that people are actually able to live on, and save from, the salary they are paid; that's supposed to be the whole point ffs. It's hardly a utopian pipe dream, or at any rate it wouldn't be if the country hadn't been systematically run into the ground by decade after decade of austerity politics.

But instead of getting angry about that, you and some others on this thread are quite happy to follow the right-wing narrative that people are just feckless and workshy and somehow think it's the individual's fault that so many workplaces don't pay their employees enough to live on in the current climate, much less save for retirement. That is why many hard-working people are having to claim benefits despite working full time, because they cannot afford to live, let alone pay into a private pension. And it's really lazy and reductive (not to mention insulting) mental shorthand to assume they just aren't doing enough to improve their lot.

It's as if somehow the people to be angry with aren't the successive governments that have crippled everyone but the wealthy over the years, but the people themselves for apparently not driving themselves hard enough. It'd be start if they were simply able to earn enough to live on and save for later life, without being squeezed on one side by this country's low pay culture and on the other by the ridiculous cost of day-to-day living.

What good little self-congratulatory worker bees some people are, sitting there preaching how people just aren't trying hard enough, meanwhile those up top have them right where they want them - humble, grateful and gullible - and they can't even see it. All the thread needs now is ‘hard work never killed anyone’ and we’ll have completed the Daily Mail blind prejudice bingo card. Hooray!

My moral compass is reassured by the latest comments.

The basic rate of income tax certainly needs to rise. The tax free allowance is also far too generous. This would align with European tax levels. Perhaps we also need a minimum wage push up too.

What I would like to see is an annual taxes paid versus benefits received statement. We might need to fully digital + ID economy to achieve this. There is added benefit here from the reduction in cash in hand fraud. Perhaps reduced crime too?

Digital IDs = totalitarian society, excessive data collection, no privacy and direct route to digital slavery

The state pension is a benefit.

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10139/

As to the relevance. Both working age and pension benefits are too generous and simply unaffordable to sustain.

I’m not happy to watch our economy be destroyed through benefit addiction and a lack of work ethic.

i recognise you have worked hard all your life. However if you have made no provision and are entirely reliant on a stare pension which is widely regarded as unsustainable, you have given yourself no room to move.

Will the State Pension be reformed. Eventually yes. If done sooner the outcome might be less savage. However the welfare cut u turn in Parliment recently suggests this will be impossible. To a severe change will come on the back of a financial crisis.

With fraud and cheating abundant we need strict rules. Unfortunately many simply cannot be trusted.

I’d bet my house that in the event of a financial crisis pensions would be untouched. They’re a sacred cow. And if you want evidence of that just look at the confected outrage to score political points that greeted the WFA means test. And that was about £150.

IMF technocrats care not for sacred cows.

Politicians care very much. The IMF has no jurisdiction over where cuts are made if required, its role is to simply advise and support.

IMF will insist on cuts/changes to benefits if the UK goes to them for a loan. Just look at what happened with Greece. Pension amount reduced, pension contributions increased, retirement age raised.

The IMF can advise on a change to overall spending. It has no jurisdiction as to where those changes are made as long as the result is achieved.