I’ve easily found £30bn of savings, so why can’t the government do this?

[OwnGravityField]

How about this state pension adjustment proposal?

Currently, the state pension system pays the same to everyone, even to households with very large private pensions and investment incomes. Much of this money ends up funding luxuries.

The proposal is simple:
*full SP for everyone who depends on it (60% of pensioners)
*households with more than £12,000 a year from private pensions, work, or investments have 50p of SP withdrawn for every £1 above that level, up to the value of the pension itself
*A quarter of pensioners would only have a modest reduction, and only the wealthiest 15% would no longer receive a publicly funded pension they do not need.

I used chatGPT to do the calculations.

Savings? THIRTY BILLION A YEAR

That’s 1% of GDP

List of things that could improve?

restored trust between generations so young taxpayers see their money spent on genuine need, not luxury.

national renewal: homes, NHS, lower childcare costs, investment in schools, training, the police force. It could be used to help families who are struggling with mortgage costs.

re-directing spending from low-value consumption (luxuries, imports) to investment (homes, healthcare, infrastructure) improves living standards

Positive effect on the bond markets, sterling value, credit-rating agencies, inflation trends, reduction in government debt - the UK really really needs this right now

I’d absolutely get up off my bum and vote for a party that proposed this. Would you?

They didn’t - it is still means tested (and gets removed at a much lower level than child benefit).

The original means test was set far too low. Someone living on just the new state pension wouldn’t have received it, and they would hardly have been living in luxury.

I would not vote for any party who dispensed with the state pension for people who worked harder and smarter all their life

Why should I be penalised because other people have not worked/not worked hard enough/already burden the state financially before they even get more free money?

I EARN every penny I get each month by working hard, after many years of studying. It's not sheer luck that got me here. My private pension contributions are based on the expectation that I will receive a state pension too.

I'm really looking forward to my state pension. I am determined to experience that lifestyle of sitting on my arse, watching TV while the state bankrolls me.

This already happens to an extent, so the maths are wrong.

Imagine someone has a private pension that already pays £12,571 a year, who then reaches state pension age and receives the state pension of almost £12,000. Keeping the maths simple, as the personal tax-free allowance is £12,571 in effect, the pensioner pays 20% tax on the state pension - i.e. his/her state pension is reduced by 20%.

If the pensioner in the example has been prudent enough to invest, save and otherwise accumulate sufficient wealth that their annual earnings (private pension, work pension, bank interest, dividends etc) exceed £50,270 then they will pay 40% tax on their State Pension when they eventually receive it.

As for the ramble about luxury consumption and investment, this too is far too simplistic and in essence incorrect. So-called "wealthy" pensioners don't spend all their money on low-value (?) consumption such as "luxuries" - they derive a private pension income from money invested in stocks, shares and investment funds; investments that create jobs in factories and infrastructure in the UK. Even if they did all decide to spend their money on "luxuries" this expenditure would also fund jobs in the UK - their Barbour jacket comes from a factory in South Shields; their Rolls Royce from Crewe; their Church's shoes from Northampton.

…..according to chatGPT

They didn't, it will be clawed back if income exceeds £35 I believe.

When talking about generational bias remember subsided childcare is relatively recent. My DC were born in the 90s and I had no free childcare. Our child benefit was means tested although we weren't affected as income was lower than the threshold.

I’ve been working for nearly 45 years paying tax and NI. I’ve saved hard for my retirement but I’ve factored getting state pension into the numbers. When I started work state pension age was 60, it’s now 67 (which I have no issue with). Why should I be penalised for saving hard all my life rather than spending?

I'm currently paying into a private pension. I'll stop that then as I'll just get penalised for it.

You would have to convince the electorate and most would vehemently oppose it.

Certainly selling it as a future proposal may work. But once again we see the welfare state incentivising people not to take responsibility for their own lives and in fact penalising them for doing so.

No criticism of you so please don't read this that way. But, loads of pensioners live alone in houses that isolate them and actively damage their health. They would never give them up regardless though. Clinging on to property, assets and money is the most important thing when they could have a more active and social life with much more human connection if they let go of those things.
I guess it's just human nature though.

We actually do have to claim it, as I've only recently discovered.

I become eligible for mine next year, but it won't be sent to me automatically. Apparently, I have to fill in an application.

This

FFS

Who the next time we asked said it would be ‘political suicide’

When did they retire at 60 with final salary pensions? They’ve all been gone for ages, and you can’t claim early without taking a reduction anyway.

Over the last five days my private pension has earned £15,000 in interest, Whilst I slept, you’re gonna stop doing that are you so that you get £12,000 from the government that you perceive as being your right? 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Don’t use chat GPT. It’s horrendous for the environment. Just use a calculator!!

Can’t find a single mention of that being a Reform policy at all. They seem to be instead aiming to encourage people to pay more into their own pensions.

What a thunderingly ignorant post. Pensioners are taxed on income above the tax free threshold as it is, and more are paying tax now as the bands hardly move.

My DM had a tiny private pension which was about £800 a year on top of state pension, and she got attendance allowance for the final three months of her life. In her final year she paid £1000 tax on an income of just under £13,000. If she wasn't living with us her rent and bills would've had to come out of this.

You would be taxing people into poverty and the state would be picking up the bill anyway. Unless you want to just let them die or bring back workhouses.

What contract have you signed?

You are being MASSIVELY unreasonable. I am 56 and have been paying my NI for FORTY years already. And I've another 11 years to go. If anyone messed with my state pension now, I think I'd be murderous.

I do have a private pension, that I paid into for 27 years. It would place me into your 50% category. I would be wondering why, for 27 years, I had pain into that private pension, only to be penalised for it now.

It's already a total piss take, that people who haven't worked receive Pension Credit that's almost the same as the State Pension, but now you expect people who have paid in for potentially 50 years, to receive LESS than someone who has never worked or contributed. How the hell can you square that one away in your head?

I haven’t read the full thread but there’s so much focus on cutting the welfare bill rather than any other method of funding the economy.. it’s almost as if people argue only got things that they feel would cause them to gain.
OP - why should families get help with mortgages?
Why is childcare and education high on your list ..?
Because perhaps it’s your stage in life?
People who have paid NI for many years and are approaching pension age will rightly feel aggrieved by having a threat to the only benefit they are most definitely going to receive (pension).
I mean unless and until Attendance Allowance or PIP or UC becomes a benefit that they need to rely on.
It’s easy to turn to any particular benefit or any particular group of people that you aren’t currently in and think that cuts should be made for them but not you.

No, they haven't been gone for ages!!

I have a final salary pension. I am 55, and can take it now if I want. I haven't as I am still working. DH also has one he can take at 55 - he's a Police Officer.

No admin costs because they already share data, you say?

I have a disabled child who receives disability benefits (DLA). I also receive Universal Credit. Both are administered by the DWP.

When you are awarded DLA you have to inform Universal Credit on your journal what has been awarded and the date. They then have to do a manual check to verify this despite the fact it’s all administered by the DWP.

You then have to put in a manual request to get the UC increase backdated to when DLA was awarded. They won’t pay the back payment automatically. Because ANY back payment has to be approved, the case is then sent to a decision-maker. This is separate from the check to verify your child has been awarded DLA. Once the back payment is approved by a decision-maker (which can take 10-12 weeks in some cases) it’s referred to another person to “press the button” and release the payment. By the way, the back payment for DLA is always approved by the decision-maker because the delay is due to another DWP department’s backlog, not the claimant.

There’s literally no need for any of this - it’s all the same bastard department. If you’re awarded DLA there should be an automatic check for UC - a simple database enquiry would do this automatically. It would save all the manual touches and the multiple journal messages and phone calls from parents chasing this up.

If you’ve ever been in any Child DLA groups you’d appreciate not only the volume but also how many times parents have to chase both verification and payment.

Automating this should be simple as it’s all within the DWP but apparently that’s beyond their capability. Even better, they like to touch the same case multiple times rather than dealing with it all at once.

Your assertion that the DWP and HMRC could interact seamlessly with no admin is so far off the mark - quite aside from anything else, I don’t want to think what the admin costs would be for all the checks. Based on what they do for DLA/UC, it’d cost more than it saves! 😂

If they want to save cash they could just look at their current admin processes - they’d save a fortune. And I don’t just mean UC and DLA - every process is onerous with multiple unnecessary touches.

A ridiculous and very unfair idea. If a person has paid towards their State Pension all their working life, AND has voluntarily paid into private pension(s) in order to achieve a higher income in retirement, why on earth should they be penalised for doing so? Remember, they have foregone things in order to contribute to the private pension. It would never work.

I think it would be if he tried to implement it.

Rewarding shirkers not workers. The headlines write themselves.

It's really not very reliable at calculations. See https://www.retable.io/blog/why-is-chatgpt-bad-at-math. It's honestly not very good at maintaining its grip on reality. See https://www.anthropic.com/research/project-vend-1 where AI insisted it was human and wearing a red tie rather than optimising pricing (which it was meant to do).