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*households with more than £12,000 a year from private pensions, work, or investments have 50p of SP withdrawn for every £1 above that level, up to the value of the pension itself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?

If any of what you proposed happened with the state pension, I’d be demanding my contributions back. And I’d push for no NI. Absolutely a batshit idea.

so folk who have worked and saved all their life for a good retirement will be robbed… go chase yourself

@OwnGravityField
Your saving figures are also wrong

UK SP costs £138billion p.a.
That's 11million pensioners

About 8 5 million pay income tax.
And 1 million pay higher rate tax.

2.5 million @ 0%
7.5 million @ 20%
1 million @ 40% tax

[ (7 5 x 20%) + (1 x 40%) ] / 11 ==> 17.2%

Average tax recouped is 17% which you haven't factored into your benefit calc. So your maximum saving is under half of what you think it is.

While effectively making a retrospective tax change to the planning of 10 million people

So we're going to tell people that the more national insurance you pay, the less pension you will get? Hmm.

The other thing to consider is that making a significant number of the population poorer is not going to help the economy grow. For a laugh I’ve asked ChatGPT why it thinks the U.K. economy is in such a poor state and why. Is it Brexit, welfare costs or asylum seekers or something else.

ChatGPT says the biggest reason is lack of growth and listed a raft of reasons for this lack of growth, none of which will be solved by raising taxes or slashing state pension. Quoted a lot of the Institute for fiscal studies about how to kickstart growth and also talked about tax reform to make it fairer and encourage growth rather than simply raising taxes. Mainly about boosting investment to boost productivity. Focus on training, infrastructure, supporting businesses to adopt new technologies . Hopefully Reeves has been asking ChatGPT for advice…or even listening to experts from the IFS.

@utamea

I topped up my contributions about a couple of years ago, after being told that I hadn't paid quite enough because the rules were changed at some point. I paid over 800 pounds. Had I thought that there was any chance of the rules being changed again, I wouldn't have paid.

So I have paid NI since I was 15 years old and have to wait to retire until feck knows when AND state pension will be reduced?

I don't want to no your family history. It's personal to you and boring to everyone else.
I'm sorry I've never got my head around there and their. English is not my strong point.
It sounds like maths isn't your strong point but I won't hold it against you.
The government should be giving money to people who need it not wasting it on people with savings in the bank and a mortgage free roof over your head.
Your from the entitled generation who are taking more out of the system than they have put in.
I'm working 60 hours a week as a single person in rented accommodation. There's no right to buy housing scheme to help us . Just houses starting at £220000 being built.

The easiest way to increase the contribution from pensioners is to scrap NI and raise that money from income tax. There is no good reason why tax is lower on unearned income such as pensions, dividends, rents and and investments, rather than wages

I'm sure anyone's plans are going to be better than what Rachel (from accounts) and her mates are about to reveal... however... I thought they had inherited a £20bn black hole from the tories, about 18 months' ago. Allegedly it took the tories 14 years to accumulate that so how on earth have they gained another £10bn in such a short time?

GB News joins the chat

So all the people who have worked hard all their lives and have propped up the pensions for others get nothing and the people who have sat around on their arses get it all?

@yellowshirt On what basis have you extrapolated that maths isn't my strong point, that I'm entitled or that I have taken out more than I have put in.

I never had access to right to buy. I did work 60+ hour weeks in my 20s and until recently worked 50+. DH worked 70+ in his 20s/30s/40s/50s - probably 45 to 50.

We are mortgage free because we paid it off.

I am really looking forward to my £12k state pension. As is DH. It's a small compensation for the years of work and tax we have rendered.

So you dont need it either then, your working after all. What help do you need?

You don’t suddenly become a different person at 67, why would someone who was perfectly happy at 66 suddenly want to move to the equivalent of the old age pensioner Big Brother house? Maybe 80 plus year olds are perfectly happy living in their “isolated” houses? After all, according to people like you on this thread they are absolutely rolling in cash so can afford carers, cleaners, gardeners and companions.

Who cares about your personal situation, it's boring to everyone else. Can't afford a house, get a better job and stop whining. Why on earth should the government be wasting money by subsidising housing for someone like you. Doesn't sound like you are putting more in than you are getting out. If that seems harsh maybe reflect on your post

Totally agree. Why should I subsidise someone else’s housing.

the thing is as well get increasingly squeezed this sort of attitude is going to become more prevalent as we feel we’re having the piss taken out of us. I didn’t get given a help to buy or right to buy scheme. I got a job, I saved and I got a house. I have new neighbours, ftb, they’re in their mid 20s doing normal jobs and have managed to buy a house costing them 220k.

yeah we all know house prices aren’t what they were in the 90s. Well neither are wages. My first job was 10k a year, my house cost me 34k. I think a nmw job would pay 25k still, you can still buy houses round here for 75k- 80k . So the wage to house prices ratio is about the same.

Am I taking more out than I’ve put in? State pension might get it for 10-15 years at 12k a year. I pay 10.5k a year tax just on income tax and NI and by the time I get my state pension and will have paid tax for 52 years (ok not all at 12k a year of tax payments). But actually I’d expect for the next ten years or so I’ll pay more than 10.5k a year as my wages are still rising. So even with the odd nhs bill I think I’m probably a net contributor by the time I’ve added on all the VAT and council tax I pay.

people earning over 41k a year are generally a net contributor

@slummymummy24 what’s with the Rachel from accounts- Sunak was a former Goldman Sachs banker who spent a stint at a hedge fund involved in a deal at the heart of the 2008 financial crash.Did you all call him Rishi the asset stripper , bank buster etc??

Completely agree. That’s the way to do it… I’d get rid of NI altogether!

MIL and FIL bought their three bed semi in 1960. MIL still lives there with her local community close by. She's 89 and can fund cleaner/carer, etc.

DH and I will move in the next five years to somewhere smaller, location will depend on the dc. We'll give the DC at least £500k each to avoid the treasury getting their mitts on it and giving it away to people who are somewhat entitled. This thread has somewhat crystallised my views.

Unfortunately there isn't necessarily a connection between the jobs that we need people to do (from care worker to bin man - the 'essential' jobs during Covid) and salaries.

That is why affordable housing is necessary.

The housing is affordable for people doing those jobs, what isn't affordable is for those people to necessarily own their own homes and have a couple of kids. However the notion has taken hold that everyone is entitled to own their own home and have a couple of kids no matter how unable they are to provide for them

I loathe the "Rachel from accounts" insult as it's clearly misogynistic.

George Osborne was a chancellor yet had a History degree, then a quick stint as a journalist, then straight into Tory government with his Eton mates. Completely unqualified and the roots of UKs decline can be traced to his mismanagement, post 2008.

In contrast RR studied PPE at Oxford and then a Masters in economics at the LSE. She joined the Bank Of England and then went into politics.

Her CV is way more suitable over Osborne for chancellor. However I think we should have some minimum qualifications for Ministers. Too many have very little experience other being political.

I’d track the economic issues back to Gordon Brown, but he was also a History graduate so I agree with your point overall.

Perhaps the real lesson is not to let History graduates anywhere near the Treasury.

As somebody who lives off investments and including rental properties, I completely agree.
I do also work because I love my job.