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!!

It is to your benefit so it’s a benefit, sounds like you are causing an issue when there isn’t one.

Oh absolutely. It's an awful lot of taxpayers' money to spend to give everyone over SPA a tenner though!

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

What law says that ?

It doesn't matter whether the OP's post isn't entirely accurate. The fact remains that it is unfair for the government to keep increasing pension age. They've taken over 80k from us at a time when chronic illness is increasing and healthy life expectancy is decreasing.

I think PPs would be a bit more understanding if they were older and/or in poorer health. I'd have had seven years to work and now I have fifteen. I'm not sure I see myself living that long.

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

As many others have said, this is simply incorrect.

If you can spare 13 minutes, there is an excellent, and really clearly explained, video by Richard Murphy - Emeritus Professor of Accounting Practice - that starts with a description of exactly how pensions work and the 'pension contract' that exists between the generations. It's absolutely worth checking out.

Yes that's now. But in the past the young outnumbered the old. They just couldn't be arsed to vote.

And lets' not forget, 1 in 3 people still doesn't vote. so 33% of the electorate are totally fine with how things are.

Honestly, why does it matter? Noone cares what it's called.
You sound rather snobby, there's nothing wrong with accessing benefits so please don't worry about claiming.

I thought the main issue was not that it was means-tested, it was that the original means test was set too low.

The £10 bonus is ridiculous and should be abolished. I suppose the government is looking for £billions of savings not £millions.

oh dear!!! think yourself lucky you are getting a pension, I am paying in via taxation (FOR YOU) and probably won't get a state pension or be at least 70 before I qualify.
Totally unreasonable and obviously no idea how Govt/ pensions work!
Oh and I bet you voted for Brexit and are now moaning about the price of food and immigrants!
Please give use critical thinking

The fact remains that it is unfair for the government to keep increasing pension age.

Life is unfair.

Did you sign this agreement at a crossroads at midnight?

Your contributions that you diligently made

This is another myth - eligibility is based on NI records, not just contributions per se. There are plenty of state pensioners who have paid very little in actual NI because their NI record includes periods when they were claiming eligible benefits (eg child benefit). There's an important reason for that, to ensure that (for example) SAHMs aren't destitute in their old age, but the idea that everyone in receipt of the state pension has paid for it is incorrect for more than one reason!

And what people moaning seem to fail to realise is that the increase also affects everyone younger than them as well - they are not uniquely disadvantaged by this.

It matters what it's called, because when it's called a benefit, and you have politicians promising to "slash the benefits bill" you will have a different outcome that if you called it a "pension" with the (incorrect) implication it's not a benefit.

NICs are counted as ‘social contributions’ rather than taxes. While National Insurance originated as a system of contributions in exchange for entitlement to specific (‘contributory’) social security benefits, the link between contributions and benefits has weakened over time, and while an individual’s past payment record has some influence on the size of payments they receive, in practice, the link between contributions paid and benefits received is weak.
NIC receipts are, unlike most taxes, paid into the National Insurance Fund and are notionally used to pay for the state pension and other contributory benefits. (About a fifth of NICs revenue is allocated directly to the NHS, although this only makes up a small proportion of NHS funding.)

While on the face of it, the NI Fund is separate from other parts of government finances, and used to fund contributory benefits, in reality the separation of the NI Fund from the main government account is meaningless. When the Fund is insufficient to finance benefits, it is topped up from general taxation; and when the Fund builds up a surplus, it is used to reduce the national debt. The government decides how much to raise in NICs, and how much to spend on the NHS and on contributory benefits; the amounts need not be-and generally are not-related to each other.

It is a benefit. It’s not the money you ‘saved’. That’s long gone.

I work in benefits for older people so meet a lot of them. There are so many who have literally barely worked at all , it's quite an eye opener. Yet they do very well. By the time the generation that has been working constantly from the age of 18 or earlier reaches state pension age it's clear there is going to be little left for us as there's not enough young workers to pay for it. I'm not really sure how many understand this ticking timebomb. .

Just for public information, this is why despite the pitiful amount of carers allowance, it's important to claim it when eligible as it also credits your NI record. Otherwise it will look like you weren't paying your stamps (as they say) and when you go to retire you wonder why you don't get as much.

Personally I don’t agree with Ni at all - I would rather it was like Scandinavia and you paid 37- 46% tax , didn’t have NI and far more got funded and bigger pensions too - The fact is though it’s never been a savings pot - it was originally used to contribute to NHS and funding pensions in general - not your specific pension!

the other thing is OP , for everyone like you , there are millions of women ( some men too) who contributed very very little in terms of NI over the years but are covered off because the state contributed towards it for a lot of years be it via them having children or being unemployed etc - presumably if you think it’s a personal thing they should get very little at all post 67 .??

You are completely wrong about how the state pension and NI works.

You are absolutely correct that the right-wing now love to refer to the state pension as a 'benefit', e.g. when talking about how much the govt spends on "benefits" they include state pension to massively, massively inflate the figure.
They do this for ideological reasons: in their world-view, everyone should have a private pension and the state pension should be stopped.

Its just a glorified ponzi system whereby those at the bottom (the newer participants) contribute and those at the top of the pyramid cream off the funds. Its not the fault of todays pensioners that no one took account of this way back, and put into effect the incremental chances which would have prevented todays demographic inbalance.

Ah I see someone above said the same about those who were not actually paying NI

Oh I realise it very well.

Life is unfair.

(Did I say that ?)

You do actually. I was told this by the Department of Work and Pensions when I had a query about my future state pension. The contributions I have made via national insurance are my money. They use it for sure before retirement, but are honour-bound to pay that person's pension when the time comes because it belongs to them.

I'm a current pensioner. I fully understand that I funded the pensions of those who went before me and current workers are funding mine. I also don't think the continuing of the triple lock is sustainable.
I didn't vote for anything in the way your post implied.