Pension credit only £3 less than State Pension

[SpanishBaguette]

Maybe it's been obvious to others but I've only just found out that Pension Credit will top you up to no less than £227 per week which is only £3 less than the state pension.

AIBU to be hacked off that I need to pay 35 years of contributions to end up with a near identical pension to someone who gets it for free. WTF?

I suppose the difference is it’s likely that as someone who has worked 35+ years you may well own your own house which is possibly now mortgage-free, have a private pension on top of your state pension and maybe savings as well. All of which would mean you have considerably more income/money to spare than someone who has always been on benefits.

Fake an illness. Waste NHS time for 3 to 6 months making sure fake illness is documented. Claim PIP. If you have a partner get them to do the same but make sure one is physical and one is mental and then you can both claim carers for each other too.

@jan2310 did she aye?

Being on pension credit also gives access to other benefits

No, but the pension you have worked to contribute towards, should clearly be noticeably more than a pension given to someone who has not contributed to it.

Whether you have another pension source is irrelevant. The state pension is meant to be something you pay into.

🙂This. I wouldn’t want to be facing twenty or thirty years of retirement worrying about every pound I spent. I enjoy my retirement, I have a decentish private pension and the state pension and Am comfortable. I certainly wouldn’t be if I was surviving on the bare minimum the government reckons will keep someone alive.

I have to disagree. There was plenty of information explaining that if you chose to reduce your NI contributions to the ‘married woman’s stamp’, you would get a lower retirement pension, based on your husband’s contributions.

Additionally, there was information that you should apply for Home Responsibilities Protection if you chose to stay at home to look after children, for whom child benefit was paid.

Surely adults have responsibility to check out their financial situation and how the choices they make may affect their future entitlements?

Only if they have enough capital. You may not have noticed, but we have a system which makes it very, very expensive to move house.

How would someone like myself downsize when I already live in a tiny low value house in a bad area? There is nothing out there cheaper than the home I own unless I bought some ramshackle slum at auction that needs a large amount spending on it. I own my house, get the full state pension, have a small NHS pension pay income tax , full council tax and like everyone else have seen my outgoings all but double due to the cost of living crisis. Why should I sell up and start paying rent after working for over 45 years, bringing up a child by myself with no financial help from the child's father and it was really hard. Do i not deserve a bit of peace in the last years of my life.

Can @AirborneElephant who thinks pension credit shouldn’t exist and @MinniemouseDisney explain what pension credit actually is? Can you explain which, if any, income thresholds apply? Can you explain who would qualify and who would not?

Oh, here we go. 🙄

You couldn’t get HRP if you were paying the married women’s stamp before you claimed child benefit.

I think women generally realised they’d get a reduced pension, but at 19 or 21 weren’t necessarily in a position to understand the implications - and also divorce wasn’t as common.

and give top ups to those who have had one.

This was an error when editing my post and it was too late to edit when I realised. It doesn’t mean anything.

I know exactly what pension credit is. I’m ok for it to exist but I think it should be substantially lower than the state pension and that there should be no savings or equity disregard.

exactly.

I agree with @weighinin. It is possible to have very modest occupational penson but to be worse of materially than someone on PC who has never saved in their life. It does not matter why they have never saved - whether through misfortune or fecklessness. It simply should not happen and deters younger people from saving knowing that they will be subbed out even if they dont provide for themselves. There should be an appraciable financial difference between those eligible for PC and those who have saved. Otherwise where is the incentive?

@AirborneElephant there wouldn't have been much scope for my DM to downsize from the 2-up, 2-down house she bought when she was 62, (the first she owned on her own, purchased with money scraped from her DP's estate, a bit from me and a little from her mother) while the costs of selling and stamp duty would have meant that she was out of pocket every which way, and much less secure.

Presumably because you can't live on less than that. It's a state benefit, not some fucking reward for working hard (sorry if this offends the many who think it is - I earned it, etc etc).

Because they think that it should be a universal benefit. Why should only people who have not worked get it?

The Tories and Reform want to stop people getting benefits as a lifestyle choice.

My mum gets Pension Credit and PIP (I had to fight hard for her to get DLA many years ago). I love my mum to bits and of course I'm happy my mum gets this money.

But I have to say, as she is mortgage free, her benefits mean she has a lot of money. She saves at least £5000 a year.

Am I happy that all mortgage free people get that much money? Not really. I don't know how they worked out a basic standard of living but I do know my mum's standard of living is not that basic. And it's paid for by tax payers. Some people really have won the lottery.

As a high rate tax payer, when I saw just how much money my mum gets, I stopped donating to food banks and now only make donations to charities overseas.

This is so true, I am really unhappy where I live but would need at least another £70k to buy a house similar to mine in a "better" area and cover all the associated costs, it simply isn't an option now I am retired and I am bloody tired after going out to work for over 45 years. I am old, I do not have many years left and would like them to be as stressfree as possible. A mate of mine who is a bit younger than me is moving and it has dragged in for almost a year and is costing her a fortune. She had to greatly reduce the asking price on her house, it is lovely but the area is shit and her new place needs a ton of work. She is stressed and worn out and while I envy her for getting out of he horrible area we live in, I do not envy her the small fortune is is costing her .

It’s a survival baseline, that you can choose to top up if you are able. Are you really arguing you want to swap with someone born with disabilities or who suffered an awful accident, whose mental health collapsed or some other calamity? I work with the most amazing people with learning disabilities who will never pay in in your view yet they volunteer alongside me and do amazing things for the community. Why do you want poor people to have even less?

You can only claim pension credit with minimal savings. Are you sure she has not gone over this threshold?

FKI Bradbury pension information is available on the FKI Group Pensions website
. The FKI pension schemes were affected by the company's acquisition by Melrose in 2008 and subsequent changes, including the winding up of a defined contribution (DC) plan in 2017.

Potential link to Bradbury-Melrose: Some pension schemes may have been impacted by Melrose's acquisition of FKI. As noted above, the FKI pension plan was transferred in 2017.

I prefer my life of work, meeting interesting people, getting out of the house, earning money, having a private pension that I will have alongside state pension.
I wouldn't like to exist on just pension credit, even if it did mean my council tax would be paid. I'm still better off, mentally and economically.