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 agree with most of what you wrote,@Crikeyalmighty. Anyone who thinks that wealthy and unpleasant Farage, Tice and Lowe are interested in improving things for ordinary British people is very naive, just the same as those who voted for BJ and those who thought that Brexit would mean another few hundred million for the NHS. I also doubt that Farage is actually interested in becoming the UK PM. That's too much actual hard work for him. In my opinion, he enjoys creating chaos and having lots of attention lavished on him but doesn't actually want to do anything difficult so he will be off if Reform does get voted into power.
I'm not as anti Brexit as you are. I did vote against it but very much doubt that rejoining would help now. The EU will break up in time imo.

@ilovesooty you are so right. It's all the fault of the lazy young scroungers and all the brown people who have no right to be here. If it wasn't for those groups, I could have my pension at 60 despite only working for a total of 5 years and then scrounging off all those young and brown people who work for a living.

? State pension should not be paid to anyone who has only worked 5 years.

Only paid to anyone who has over 35 years WORKING contributions (incl full time carers) and pension credit removed entirely. I.e you have to work if you expect the government to provide a state pension in old age.

No contributions equals no pension which is a contributory benefit. This message needs to be made clear to everyone leaving education.

But who will clear the bodies away ? Or do you own a firm that is looking for the contract ?

If the message is communicated clearly unambiguously there is no room for misunderstanding. Whether you are a CEO or flip burgers you qualify. What's is wrong with that??

Exactly. It obviously wouldn't happen overnight, but it enough notice was given, then it's perfectly reasonable to move most benefits onto a genuine contributory basis, based entirely on your real earnings from declared work with a more restricted set of criteria for those genuinely unable to work.

There are already precedents in other European countries where things like unemployment benefits are based on your prior working history and restricted for relatively short periods of time.

We even saw it to an extent with Covid Furlough which was based on declared prior earnings for workers (yes, it had many faults due to Rishi botching it, but the general principle was there!).

@taxguru I agree- I think it will be £40k single, £60k joint - however the downside of this is I think people will withdraw larger annual amounts in chunks out of pension funds -

@taxguru my suspicion is that the state pension if the future will be more in line with eligibility for universal credit, i.e. only for people without assets or income :(

Yes, probably will drag more people into being ineligible due to fiscal drag over time if the threshold doesn't increase with inflation which is what has happened with personal tax free allowance, the H/R threshold, the child benefit and free child care thresholds etc.

Yes, I'm sure there will be some sort of income cut off made at some point. The problem is that, as with current tax policy, it disincentivises work even more and pushes higher earners to move abroad.

Sure but that is clearly not what has happened wrt the current generation of pensioners. As several people have suggested, it is likely to be gradually withdrawn with those earning more, and arguably working harder, being the losers.
@SerendipityJane is right about rising poverty levels in future imo.

All the people who cannot work at all due to disabilities they are born with wouldnt qualify. They need supporting or they will die. I can see which option you have chosen.

You can communicate the message with a daily flypast of the red arrows if you like.

What is your plan for people who - despite all your encouragement - end up with no fucking money ? In the absence on a reply I am assuming your plan is to let them starve to death on the streets. And I want to know what the hell you plan to do when it affects the value of my house ?

I'm quite with you on letting poor people starve to death. I mean that's their own lookout. But why should I have to suffer a lower sale price on my house just because there are a few rotting corpses outside ?

It's alright, @Starsandstripes44 and I are working through that. Apparently even poor peoples organs are worth something, so am sure we can cobble together a viable replacement system.

Out of curiosity, what's your blood group ?

As someone who is not allowed to give blood because of my health conditions, are you sure you'd want any of my organs, LOL

Not at all. I would imagine any decent caring person would want to assist a disabled family member in an emotional and financial capacity. I would question the love and integrity of someone unwilling to do that.
(Obviously the tiny percentage of the popultion with extreme and severe disabilities would need additional care).

Not all families can afford to fully support a disabled person for the whole of their lives.

@SerendipityJane I’m sure Farage has this covered off already !! There doesn’t seem much thought given to those who can’t actually get jobs either at various periods of life, a lot of SAHMs would be totally stuffed or those having to take time out to care for sick partners or parents. My own view is that it will become an ‘add on’ and if you are getting circa £50k from ‘investments/pensions/savings - you won’t get state pension as well -

People still need to feed their pets.

More pet food ?

They'd want to give pets dodgy diseases, wow.

That would be beyond the pale, I admit. We know how much the British love their pets.

Not all people have families anyway.

You won't like me then as I see the state pension as a benifit that those working today have to fund. Training as a nurse in 1985 it stuck me that there was a demographic time bomb waiting down the line and that the number of pensioners to be funded and needing care would be more than the country can afford. So many of my generation are massively entitled, we are the most well of pensioners ever . I agree there should we safety nets for some ...eg loans against value of home for repairs if income is low.

As a retired pensions consultant who spent their entire working life dealing with private pension schemes and State benefits, I have to say your description of how the State pension works is total fantasy.

The Government never entered into any sort of agreement with you.

"Your" pension money was never held "in a securely locked box". It was used to pay the pension instalments for the week in which you paid it.

The State pension is most certainly a State benefit.

Sorry but this is bullshit.