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!!

I'm not sure about the hallmarks of Russian bots and maybe you are right here but I find that there is a lot of name calling on social media when people post things that others disagree with. Frequently, these people are just wrong and can't bear to think that others don't fall in line behind them or might be critical of a politician that they admire or visa versa.

Lady Jane you are living in a different planet to me

@LadyjaneOnSteroids
Excellent post 👏

It's not, it's mostly incoherent drivel. I stopped reading at the activax section 🙄

In your opinion

I knew I’d seen this post before. The OP has just copied it from a Facebook post that has been doing the rounds for weeks! They have just ‘followed’ others - take it with a pinch of salt!

I agree. Utter rubbish.

It was definitely sold to us as a pay in , get out, whether it’s politically expedient to admit it now or not.

@Surelyitsajoke I’m afraid there are lots of professional antagonists out there whose raison d’etre is to rile people up on such stuff - worked in the US -

Of course it's a benefit. It forms the majority of the welfare budget.

If your taxes all went into a pot for you to draw down on retirement how would the country be run in the meantime?

But you had no choice but to "pay in" as it's just another tax. The only "choice" is voluntary contributions for those who don't qualify by virtue of benefits they receive, caring responsibilities or not earning earning through work to qualify for credits. There is an argument for those who paid voluntarily that they "deserve" the benefit that they'd specifically paid for, but for everyone else, it really was just an extra tax.

@taxguru I was about to reply on this but you beat me to it - for the vast majority there was no ‘sell in’ needed. you were paying it come hell or high water anyway . I was always thought it was defined as a contributory benefit - although turns out many who paid next to jackshit in got it anyway - however I guess the difference is if you aren’t entitled and have money in the bank , enough to not qualify for benefits at all , you won’t be getting any pension credit either - whereas for anyone who has some assets but does qualify you get it on top of whatever assets you have.

I think that’s a bit naive. Paying whatever their own NI amount is wouldn’t necessarily guarantee them the equivalent of State Pension, and plenty of add pension schemes have collapsed and failed entirely. Where the government have had to bail them out at yet more expense.

Agree, if people think an amount equivalent to the average person's NI contributions would be enough (even with investment returns) to provide a triple-lock-protected pension starting at £12k pa they are deluded!

The original purpose of a pension was the support people who couldn’t work anymore - much like ling term sickness.
It was not supposed to support people relaxing/going on holiday! It was literally meant for your last few years.
With people getting older, age needs to increase drastically. I personally think state pension sge should be put up to 72 or similar (i’m in my 40s btw)
if you want a cushy retirement , you need to plan and later on sell assets (like a house).

lets assume somebody ears 40k a year for 35 years.
That’s about 2300 national insurance per year.
Assuming 6% interest (average of “safe” long term investments).
After 35 years, that’s roughly 260k.
In terms of annuity, it would pay you about 15 k a year, so slightly better than state pension (13k)

If you were on 35 k over 35 years, you end up with a pot of 200k.Annuity if about 11k a year, so well below state pension.
average salary in the uk is below 35 k, so yes, the state pension is a benefit!

Due to compound interest, even a couple of years less make a massive difference, so “only” working 30 years would leave you with dramatically less.

Very true. The state pension is a useful support but it is not designed to completely keep us in our old age, just to bolster to what we have.

If we don't have enough there are other benefits we can claim, eg pension credit.

Most elderly people manage reasonably well but we have to be sensible and not expect to live as we did when working.

I'm 75 and have no complaints.

You actually think you pay and it’s saved somewhere as your pension? In a little bank account. Ha ha bless you.

Originally retirement/pension age was set when life expectancy was not more than a few years beyond it. That extended with better healthcare, healthy lives, particularly for the war and post war years generation. Now its beginning to retreat again as we now lead unhealthy lives. I reckon it won't to too many years before life expectancy is shorter than retirement, particularly with cost of living.
I wonder how the idea that it was a proper pension scheme, where the government invested your pension for your future, rather than benefit became a common thought ? Mandela effect?

Indeed, tne state pension has always been intendend ensure people aren't destitute in old age (and quite right too). It's not a pension or savings scheme to support a long and comfortable retirment. If you want one of those you have to get saving yourself.

The problem with that is it would only ever apply to no more than 20% of the working population. And that's before you factor in women who have to leave work to have and care for children, or other relatives.

Eventually you'd end up with 20% of the population swanning around doing fuck all while everyone else is required to do whatever they can to carry on living.

I know everyone is obsessed with Downton Abbey, but it's not a fucking brochure.

The problem is that too many people getting older think that what they get is a ‘pension’ while many have contributed little or nothing. Some have lived on benefits their whole lives. And they go on to get the exact same as everyone who has fully contributed. That unfairness is destroying the system.

@cobrakaieaglefang

I wonder how the idea that it was a proper pension scheme, where the government invested your pension for your future, rather than benefit became a common thought ?

Unfortunately, governments over the decades have given that impression with the various earning related NIC schemes, i.e. graduation, SERPS and S2P, where your state pension was enhanced based on your earnings. Of course, all those schemes have been disbanded and now replaced by workplace pensions, so basically the govt "subcontracting" earnings related pensions out to private pension firms. As always, different governments fart around with different schemes rather than staying with the established scheme, thus causing more wasted time and money just because they want to do something different.

Nail on the head there!

But given that the number of workers far exceeds the numbers of non workers, we're already there!