To be angry with people who describe the old age pension as a "benefit"?

[FlubandSlub]

When I started my working life, aged 16, I entered into an agreement with the government for them to save my pension money for me. It was stated that it would be until I turned 60 which would be when I could starting drawing my old age pension. Even though I made my FULL pension payment contributions by the time I turned 51 the government has decided it will not abide by the original agreement and that it is going to keep MY money until I am 67. Probably hoping I will die before then.

Consider this, not only did I contribute to my pension, my employer did too. It totalled 15% of my income before taxes. If you averaged only £15 000 p a. over your working life, that's close to £220,500. Read that again. Did you see anywhere that the Government paid in one single penny?

We are talking about the money that I and my employer put in a Government bank to ensure that I would have a retirement pension. It was not money that the Government had any right to spend on other things! Upon reaching the age to take it back they've started to call the money we paid in a "benefit" !

If you calculate the future invested value of £2500 per year (yours & your employer's contribution) at a simple 5% interest (that's less than what the govtpays on the money that it borrows from overseas), after 49 years of working you'd have
£892,919.98.

This money was supposed to be in a securely locked box, not to be used as part of the Government's general funds.
Successive governments borrowed the money to spend on other things but that doesn't make my pension some kind of charity or handout!! If a private pension company did this we would sue them. Unfortunately the Government can legally rob us blind and get away with it

IT'S MY MONEY! IT IS NOT A BENEFIT!!

This isn’t what happened at all in terms of your pension.

You pay NICs on the understanding it pays for the NHS and the pensions for the pensioners of the current day.

You have a fundamental misconception about how the state pension has always worked

National Insurance pays for current pensions not future pensions. You didn't enter into any agreement with the government. They are free to change the terms. All you are stating is you don't understand how the system works.

You really don't understand how the state pension works.

Read up on it and educate yourself. If you understood how it worked, you'd understand that it's not your money. You haven't made any contract with the government.

In the meantime, you should ask for your post to be taken down.

NIC isn’t a savings scheme, you don’t have a pot of money that the government has saved for you

Where is this agreement then?

That really isn't how the state pension has ever worked OP. Can you produce this 'agreement' you have with the government (which we elect every 5 years)? There is no pot of money set aside for your pension. Your pension will be paid by the contributions of the younger generations of workers.

Not according to gov.uk. That states that your NI contributions are used to fund your pension and other benefits such as Jobseeker’s Allowance. It doesn’t mention the NHS.

It’s always worked as the current generation fund the generation above, and then their children’s generation fund them. A rolling contract.

It used to be everyone paid in and that guaranteed them a state pension.

It was never classed as a benefit until Cameron’s government. They started to call everything “handouts”.

As PP have said, you don't pay towards your own 'pot'. You pay towards the current pensioners' incomes.

“If you calculate the future invested value of £2500 per year (yours & your employer's contribution) at a simple 5% interest (that's less than what the govtpays on the money that it borrows from overseas), after 49 years of working you'd have £892,919.98.”

Would you?

The agreement is you pay NI for the minimum qualifying years and when you reach state pension age at that age you receive the full, or proportional amount, of state pension at the time.

That's all the "agreement" is.

If your employer has put money into a separate pension for you that is different, that is your private pot of money and there are various rules that apply, but you would need to look at your personal paperwork to figure out what and when.

The money you paid in National Insurance contributions paid the pensions of those who were pensioners at the time. They Didn't go into a private pot for your benefit only. Your current pension is paid for by the people working today. I'm surprised at the amount of people don't know this.

I asked chat GPT if your post was accurate OP. It’s not, apparently. The below was what came back, it’s not my words, just for clarity. I think you misunderstood what you were paying into…

🔴 Misconception 1: “I entered into an agreement with the government for them to save my pension money for me.”Wrong. The UK State Pension is not a savings scheme. It’s a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) system. Your National Insurance (NI) contributions don’t go into a vault with your name on it. They go straight into funding current pensions, benefits, and the NHS. In return, you accrue entitlement to the State Pension later. It’s a social contract, not a personal piggy bank.

🔴 Misconception 2: “It would be until I turned 60.”Incorrect. For decades, the State Pension Age has been subject to change by law, depending on demographics and affordability. Women used to have a pension age of 60, men 65. This was equalised (and then raised) because people are living longer. The government never guaranteed a fixed age of 60 for all time. If you thought you signed a contract for that, you were misinformed.

🔴 Misconception 3: “I made my FULL contributions by 51.”That’s a misunderstanding of how contributions work. You don’t “complete” payments like finishing off a mortgage. You need a minimum number of qualifying years (currently 35) to get the full State Pension. Paying early doesn’t let you stop, because NI is not a private savings pot — it’s tied to your ongoing earnings and eligibility for other benefits like sickness or unemployment cover.

🔴 Misconception 4: “The Government didn’t pay in a single penny.”Completely wrong. The State Pension is not a match-funded scheme like a workplace pension. It’s closer to social insurance: workers fund today’s retirees, and tomorrow’s workers will fund you. The “government contribution” is in the form of underwriting the system, topping it up when tax revenue is short, and guaranteeing that you will get paid regardless of market crashes — unlike private pensions.

🔴 Misconception 5: “My money was supposed to be in a securely locked box.”Nope. The UK has never operated a sovereign wealth fund or ring-fenced pension fund for NI contributions. This has been explicit policy since its creation in 1948. If you wanted a private investment-style scheme, that’s what occupational or personal pensions are for. Pretending that NI was some kind of ISA is rewriting history.

🔴 Misconception 6: “If a private company did this, we’d sue them.”Exactly — because a private pension scheme is a savings product with fiduciary duties. The State Pension is not. That’s why we have workplace pensions, personal pensions, SIPPs, ISAs, etc. for those who want actual investment. The State Pension is the safety net, not an investment vehicle.

🔴 The Big Misstep: The fantasy mathsThe “£892,919 at 5% interest” calculation is financial fan fiction.

• First, the State Pension isn’t based on compound interest, because NI isn’t invested.
• Second, assuming a fixed 5% return for 49 years is laughably simplistic — no market works like that.
• Third, if you genuinely think you could have made nearly £900k from NI, you should be furious with yourself for not paying into a SIPP instead — but you can’t have it both ways: guaranteed income and speculative investment growth.
• ✅ The RealityThe UK State Pension is a social insurance, not a savings account.
• The State Pension Age has always been subject to change by Parliament.
• NI contributions fund current obligations, not your personal nest egg.
• The system’s strength is that it guarantees a defined benefit for life, regardless of investment markets, personal discipline, or employer collapse.
• If you want that £892,919, that’s what private pensions and investments are for — and many people do build that in addition to their State Pension.

⚡VerdictThis is a textbook case of category error: confusing National Insurance with a personal savings scheme. It’s not the government “robbing you blind,” it’s the government running a pay-as-you-go welfare system that’s been clear in its structure since its post-war inception. If you thought otherwise, you weren’t misled by policy — you just misunderstood it.

“This money was supposed to be in a securely locked box, not to be used as part of the Government's general funds.”

Incorrect - there is no savings pot. Your contributions paid for current pensioners, and your pension will be paid for by tomorrow’s workers.

That’s why it’s become totally unsustainable.

And the amount paid in is tiny, nowhere near what most will take out.

OP, would you consider JSA (the first 12 weeks) as a benefit?

To be fair, when they were trying to get married women away from paying a reduced stamp, in 1971, the government did confirm that if women paid a full stamp, they would get a full pension in their own right, at age 60.

That didn’t happen. 🙄

It’s an agreement that if you contribute to help this generation then the next will help you

it’s not a benefit

people have opted out especially people with their own businesses

I've known for 26 years, and I wasn't that interested at the time being a young adult, that the pension age for women was going up to at least 65, I am assuming people more aware at the time knew a bit before me, which is nearly 3 decades now that the pension age for women was going to rise, so it's not like it was Sprung on anyone.

I asked chat GPT if your post was accurate OP

A stupid error. ChatGPT is not reliable. NEVER assume it knows what it's talking about.

Tell us where a mistake is made here? It looks accurate to me.

Unfortunately this is how my parents, 74 and 77 see things. My dad retired at 50 with an extremely generous (by today’s standard) final salary pension and paid off mortgage on a v large home. They traveled for several years and are now unable to due to poor health. He referred to them as ‘not exactly poor pensioners’ recently and that was laughable, they’re very, very well off.

They still insist they’re being robbed of their winter fuel allowance (that they’d simply bung in an investment pot somewhere) and if they didn’t get their full pension…. Well…. I can honestly imagine my barely mobile, amputee father taking up a banner and protesting! Seriously!

It sounds like you have a private pension somewhere OP as this isn't how the state pension has ever worked. I suggest you track it down so you can claim it

You are wrong about the state pension being put in a locked box,I am a pensioner and I also don’t like the word benefit being used.The fact is while you are working your national insurance contributions are paying the previous generations state pension.Your pension will be paid by the next generations contributions just as my contributions paid for my parents generation.The money that’s paid in isn’t put into some magical saving scheme.

That's what I thought it seemed to address all of the points the OP is bizarrely wound up about.