Who’s going to pay our pensions in 20-30years if the UK keeps its birth rate low and also restricts immigration?

[AlertEagle]

posted from another forum
Serious question. The UK’s birth rate is well below replacement level, meaning fewer young people entering the workforce. At the same time, the political mood seems pretty anti-immigration, even though immigration is one of the only things that’s kept the tax base stable.

State pensions are paid by current workers’ National Insurance contributions, not some magic fund. So… what happens when there’s a huge retired population and not enough working-age people to support them?

Will the government raise taxes, increase the retirement age, cut pensions, or eventually U-turn on immigration just to prop things up?

Feels like a ticking time bomb no one’s really addressing. Curious what others think, is anyone actually planning for this?

Or are we as a nation willing to give up state pensions if it means less immigration?

Yes, that’s kind of the point unfortunately!

in time I suppose immigration policies may change

Yes I’d be prepared to pay more tax for better public services and a nicer society to live in. And to fund state pensions.
And before everyone says anything like “you do it then” it only works if everyone does it!

Labour also introduced education tax and IHT on family farms, I don’t think you give them enough credit.

Do you mean VAT on the luxury that is private schooling?

Words matter, twisting them to state that Labour have introduced an Education Tax is surely beneath you?

Farm IHT is at such a low level it raises almost nothing at all? i'm not a fan but as farm incomes have rocketed recently, i'm sure they'll manage.

However, start a thread on either if you wish, this one is about funding the state pension, which means:

Higher taxes
More growth, which the Tories never managed in 14 years, i'll give them credit for that.....not.
Or less SP/higher retirement age... which hits the poor hardest.

Just pointing out Labour have done some things, stupid things but still.

Do you mean VAT on the luxury that is private schooling?

The ‘education and vocational training’ tax.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vat-on-education-and-vocational-training-notice-70130#:~:text=From%201%20January%202025%2C%20education,VAT%20exempt%20before%20this%20date.

Farm IHT is at such a low level it raises almost nothing at all? i'm not a fan but as farm incomes have rocketed recently, i'm sure they'll manage.
Yes that farm tax.

Higher taxes
More growth
Yes worth another go at taxing ourselves into growth. It’s worked so well every other time in every country that tries it. Let’s start with school children and farms.LOL

Farm incomes have rocketed recently? Gosh, I must tell the neighbours, but I am fairly sure that they will tell me the only reason they have managed to sell their milk for more is that they have built a self-service 24-hour kiosk so they capture every penny from every milking without selling milk to supermarkets. I buy milk from the herd I watch graze every day. I see the farmer bringing his herd in for milking at 6am and again in the evening and I have bought his branded refillable glass bottles, which I clean and sterilise. He's outsourced the hygiene to me, and I'm not unhappy with the transaction. The milk marketing board pay about 45ppl, and the end consumer (me) pays £1.30ppl. So he gets more than double what the middle man takes out.

I have no idea.

We have 5 grandparents in our family, all retired, all marching on into their 80s having retired at 60. At the other end we have 3 grandchildren, none of whom will have any of the economic or financial advantages that my parents and their cohort had. Replicate that across the country and the inequality and the scale of the coming crisis is clear.

Obviously, it's not an option if you live in an urban or suburban area, but in the rural SW where we are surrounded by growers and producers of food, I (like most people) keep change in the car and buy a lot of fruit, veg and flowers from the stalls on the side of the road where people sell their surplus produce. I buy my turkey direct from the producer, and pork tends to come from a smallholder who has two or three breeding sows from a breed that's highly regarded for eating quality but not fast-growing. I use two butchers in different towns who both buy carcasses direct from the farm. Both have splendid meat and their prime joints are top quality. One has refined elegant butchery skills and the other is brilliant at seasoning, but unless the customer can differentiate and is prepared to pay for something better than burger mince, then it's irrelevant. Both butchers have queues of customers, and they sell the whole carcass including the offal -- but only old people buy offal now.

😂😂😩

And the NI increases. Plus more taxes in Autumn likely.

What?
MMB went in 1994.
and has nothing to do with state pensions.

Farm incomes have shot up, esp in Dairy, meat, less so in arable....

Do you buy offal?

Have to fund the pensions of the 2m migrants Sunak let in.

Shouldn’t they be funding other pensions as they are presumably High tax payers and highly skilled?

isn’t that what we keep being told

They have definitely grown!
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/total-income-from-farming-in-the-uk/total-income-from-farming-in-the-uk-in-2024Total income from farming in the UK in 2024 - GOV.UK

Apparently.

Plus everything was ‘fully costed’ at GE and the last budget was a one off massive tax hike. Until Autumn that is.. didn’t last long.

I definitely buy offal! We're fond of liver and kidneys, properly prepared, but I can do that myself.

And, we are nearly 70, so quite old.

I just wanted to point out that, while it is true that much of the world currently has low birth rates (most of Asia outside of the Muslim world at least), recent immigration into the UK has been primarily from Muslim countries, and they tend to have much higher birth rates in the UK as well. This is one of the reasons behind the explosive growth of the Muslim population in Europe. Notably the Pakistani and Bangladeshi groups in the UK have very high birth rates.

I foresee them building something akin to student halls of residence, to house all the pensioners who don't own their own homes and are too old/ ill/ unable to work. Grimtastic.

A tax that 93% won’t have to pay. Sounds like a really shitty “education tax”.

1. Birth rates have also fallen in Muslim countries. Iran for one, of many examples is not even at replacement (1.6 per woman). In fact outside of some African countries, falling birth rates is a global phenomenon.

2. Birth rates among immigrant groups tend to align with host populations within a generation.

3. Can you cite a source for “explosive growth in muslim communities in Europe linked to birth rates?”

What "massive" additional taxes did you have to pay?

Remind me again, did VAT go up to 22%? perhaps fuel duty went up? or was it income tax? i'm sure that stayed exactly the same!

Council tax stayed the same as it has done for many years, a max 5% increase.

CGT still below income tax rates and paid by a tiny number of people.

So basically, you weren't affected at all were you but still persist with these scare stories.

The state pension problem isn’t one that needed to be costed for the election period. It’s a looming problem that MPs have been conscious of for years and is slowly being tackled - by moving the state pension age from 60 to 65 (for women) and then to 67/68. No government wants to inflict the pain of it but there’s no choice, it’s becoming more and more unaffordable especially with the triple lock.

WFA is a triviality compared to this!

I’m not sure there's ever a good education tax to be honest, but yeah I guess this one ranks low.

I mean nobody has to pay the tax. It’s completely optional.