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!!

how about those taking the hit are those claiming benefits because they wouldn't be better off working and contributing and as such choose to stay at home? How about people take more responsibility for their life choices rather than just constantly asking for more handouts? It is deeply immoral to say older people should not get their pension at a decent age because money are diverted to all sorts of other benefits. There has been a social contract in place, you pay taxes and you get health care a pension at an age, police enforcing law and order etc. Nobody voted for paying taxes for money to be diverted on all sorts and to get absolutely nothing that has been pretty much guaranteed in exchange of said taxes.
Not only it's a disgrace the way things have spiralled down in the last decades but the way people seem to think about it. I truly hope some of the opinions expressed in here are not representative of the wider population. Because if they are we are trully screwed young and old, the mentality of bend over even further regardless.

The government 'label' it as a benefit so it is!

Damien Talks Money did a video about this recently.

You are right that IF the money had been invested, it would have been worth more, but National Insurance doesn't just cover pensions and it was never saved/invested.
Those who have paid in for the last few decades find themselves in the horrible position of having paid for other people to retire at 60 and have a triple locked pension, while they are treated as benefit scroungers by the generation they believed would do what they did.

It won't help those of us who paid for all these years in good faith who are due to retire in the next few years or just recently retired, but I liked his suggestion at the end of the video for those who are still young and have a better chance to protect themselves from poverty in old age.

I don't think they really understand how much people didn't necessarily know or have an idea how to even find out back in the pre or early internet days.

Well said 👏

This has been a bone of contention with me for many years. I was a disability outreach worker for many years and helped many people claim various benefits. My main experience was with the parents of disabled people - many of whom are pretty much lifelong carers. One of the things that infuriated me most was having to confirm to those parents who had reached state pension age, that yes, it’s correct that their carers allowance has stopped. It’s actually not deducted from state pension, the way it works is that if your state pension is more than carers allowance (currently £83.30 a week) then carers stops altogether. If it’s less, then carers allowance is paid to top it up to the full rate of the allowance.

I always advised people to make a fresh claim after pension age even if no money was payable because it establishes an underlying eligibility and if they become eligible for pension credit at any point then a carers premium is paid, much the same as with UC. I think this type of overlapping benefit rule is mealy mouthed considering the amount that unpaid family carers save the tax payer.

It’s always irked me that it’s also subject to an earnings limit - it’s something like £190 a week after tax and certain deductions - but unearned income such as private pensions don’t count. It’s such a paltry amount too. £83.30 a week with 35 hours of care per week as the minimum eligibility, it works out at less than £2.50 an hour !!

A summary of the two sides on this thread:-

Tax payers becoming increasingly irate at the increasing amount they pay for shirkers

Shirkers becoming concerned their comfy lifestyle might not continue indefinitely and may one day have to be accountable.

The government don’t label it as anything. Its enshrined in law - it was legally defined as a contributory state benefit back in 1946. To change it, would require an Act of Parliament and if you look online on petitions there are a couple aimed at changing it.

They’re literally called National Insurance Contributions (NICs). So it’s not a myth.
I am aware that individuals contribute a % above the LEL & hence 2 individuals can contribute a different cash amount yearly & over the course of their career, and benefit from the same amount - providing they have complete years of contributions. You can also contribute for more years than is required etc etc.
But the point remains.

And those like me who have had over twenty years of dealing with genuinely disabled people who have had to overcome things that would make most people taking part in these threads want to lie down and die. And who is heartily sick of disabled people being included in the ‘shirkers’ category, as well as the PIP application process being labelled as a walk in the park despite being one of the most difficult benefits to secure.

You're getting a bit of a hard time OP.

The expectation of getting a state pension and what its going to be, is pretty well based on your age I think. NI was never purely for pensions whether current or future and governments have never said that it was.
It's only really become transparent in the last few years that people are going to have to save more and fend for themselves and not rely on the prospect of a comfortable state pension any longer.

Anyone with a full working record will inevitably have contributed more than the 35 years of contributions necessary for the state pension, as contributions continue until you reach pension age. NI, as you say, is not purely for state pensions eligibility but covers other state benefits and a contribution toward the funding of the NHS.

The nature of my work over many years brought me into contact with benefit claimants of all types, and I can assure you their lifestyles were anything but comfortable.

HRTFT but I agree and would prefer it to be called a contributory benefit if they have to label it a benefit.

There seems to have been a push to ensure that in fact we are all in receipt of benefits despite some us paying most of the tax and many paying nothing. I feel that there was an expectation when I paid my years of Nics for the pensioners if that time that my own pension would be paid for. I’ve already spoken to my children about considering working overseas, even for a few years, because frankly I can see that they will be simply paying tax and Nics so that vaste swathes of the population can do nothing and get given handouts left right and centre.

The government need to be very careful about how they treat the taxpayers in this country.

Disabled people are not shirkers. I was referring to those who claim other benefits rather than working or taking on two jobs.

A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.

It is a benefit albeit a contributory one. The definition of a state benefit is something like an allowance given to a person by the state to cover living expenses which is exactly what the state pension is. People who are offended at it being classed as a benefit need to look at their own prejudices towards people on benefits that they legitimately qualify for and why they are so afraid of falling into this category. The point at which the wheel really comes off is going to be if/when the state pension is abolished or means tested. The protest from those who have paid their NIC yet get no pension in return will make the WASPI women's complaints look like a teddy bear's picnic.

Each current working generation pays NI for, amongst other things, the current older generation's pensions, not into a personal savings pot for her own.
The UK state pension is pitiful and older women earned far less on average than men as well as having fewer opportunities to advance professionally if they had children.
So the OP has valid grievances that are rooted in recent historical societal acceptance of women as lesser.

Tbh I am quite angry with people who complain about not getting their pension at 60. I have worked since I was 12 (yes I was exploited and illegally employed by the employer) and when I started my retirement age was 60. It’s now 68, and there is talk of it going to 71, and it will be a small pension. I understand that it is not sustainable to carry on the retirement age at 60, but I do wish older people would stop moaning about their “entitlement” to a pension at 60.

There was no government ‘bank’, when pensions were introduced they were not funded. As pp have pointed out, NI payments and taxes pay for current pensions.

You're getting a bit of a hard time OP.

Might be because they have dumped a load of misinformation into an OP, and then buggered off.
9 pages in now and OP hasn't replied to anyone whose tried to explain how much of what she has said, she has either misunderstood completely, or that she has just chosen to drop a load of nonsense to watch people froth. From the fact she hasn't engaged with her own thread, I'm beginning to suspect the second.

@Rosscameasdoody I agree about the waspies situation but also a lot of women too between 60 and 67 - many of us were early 50s when the age started creeping upwards - too late for many to do an awful lot about it

Actually as long as there is a long lead time it would be a good idea to abolish the state pension and scrap NI contributions. People could then direct the NI equivalent into a pension of their choice.

Pension credit would also be abolished.

I think that's the long term plan behind workplace pensions. In 30-40 years' time most of today's workers will have workplace pensions accrued, so it would be a good time to means test state pension in around 50 years' time - or roll it into pensions credit, with those with low incomes being eligible.

UK state pensions are unfunded, not funded schemes, your argument makes no sense.

It just means you're a beneficiary of the money. (You get that money)

You're adding emotion to the word off your own back.