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*households with more than £12,000 a year from private pensions, work, or investments have 50p of SP withdrawn for every £1 above that level, up to the value of the pension itself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

yes this. It’s the deal we sign up to when we start work. We pay in to support current pensioners and in turn we get supported when we are pensioners. It’s not always about young people.

The lack of understanding on these threads is astounding. Yes, if you have come up with a workable idea that affects ordinary people, chances are its already in force. If you have come up with a workable idea that affects the asset super rich, chances are no one will listen to you.

We’d be able to build quite a few houses for £30bn though.

We shouldn’t squeeze anybody though - families are no more special or important than other people in society

not all families are struggling
many families are wasteful

yiu are struggling compared to 10 or 15 years ago

you are ( average ) much wealthier than people were in the 70s with so much stuff you take for granted - beauty products, hair care, cars , tvs , yearly holiday - your lifestyle is way more than most of the pensioners ever had. You want to take that away from them so they get nothing all their lives so you can have everything ?

take from the rich but don’t take from people who worked hard and had some luck in life , don’t run everyone to the bottom.

inheritance tax - take the unearned wealth from people when they are dead

Based on your proposal, I would do that for my children rather than paying in to my pension, as that becomes pointless. So, I’d save my pension money now in ISAs etc now to be able to give my kids a deposit to buy a house. Then instead of funding my own retirement, I’d just become dependent on the state instead. No savings as there’s no point, so instead of my being able to pay that, I’d just let the government do it. I’d pass my wealth to my own kids instead.

They already do this. That’s why I paid voluntary NICs while I worked abroad. If I had not, I would not be on track to qualify for the full state pension. I still have over a decade to go before I’m pension age.

By the time I get to retirement, I will have nearly 2,000,000 in assets if all goes well, I cannot imagine having the audacity to fill out the pension claim form.
People need to have a good look in the mirror

Joking aside, I don't think shared houses, like student accommodation, for single elderly people is not a bad idea. Social isolation is a real issue for elderly people and shared living could really benefit them. I'd move into it.

No I would not support that.

They did it because they worked hard and saved? Additionally they have paid tax for all (most ) of their working lives and still do. Do I detect jealousy here?

The point is you don’t have to live on 12 1/2 grand a year that’s the bloody point 🙄
Every time these threads come out people threatened that they’ll just stop working and they’ll go and live on benefits. Yeah give it a go. Let me know how you get on.

OP your obviously reading and engaging so I’m in a position where practically the only reason I’m still working full time and extra is to bump up my pension
why should I bother if I would any be marginally better off

your solution is about as reasonable and or as saying don’t have kids if you can’t afford them

are you going to reply or i suspect you’ll just ignore because this doesn’t agree with your idea

I think the pension idea might work in the long term but it would need a very slow start. Those in their 40’s/50’s onwards MH at have already made plans that rely on a full state pension.

@OwnGravityField

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

Do you honestly think that a household of 2 people should start losing their state pension entitlement as soon as they receive £6k a year each? So you think that a household of 2 should start losing their state pension as soon as they hit £1k per month?

The state pension is based on a contributory system. Apart from NICs paid through employment etc, many people have paid voluntary contributions to buy extra years where they had missed contributions in certain years. When they paid those voluntary contributions, they were told they would receive “x” amount of state pension. I’m not convinced of the legality of a government then turning round and saying “oh actually you’re not going to receive it after all, despite paying voluntary contributions and being told you would be entitled”

And that’s the point no they didn’t work any harder than anybody who isn’t living that lifestyle.
They were born at the right time
They had the right parents, maybe
They didn’t do anything special they just turned up

Bur surely if that’s the lifestyle they were able to afford pre retirement because of their work / qualifications / income, and their pension (to which they and the employer) has contributed along with their savings affords them the same now they’ve retired then there’s no issue. They’ll already be paying tax at 40% I suspect on those pensions, and when the state pension is paid maybe they’ll be paying 45%

They already exist in various forms of residential care. You will prise the key to my house where I live alone out of my cold dead hands and even they I would come back and haunt you.

All that would happen OP is that people would work out a way to get under the threshold be it taking a bigger lump sum out of pension or greater charitable donation.

Just take a look at the figures foe the Scottish govt tax revenue - what they predicted versus what they are actually getting as people work out ways to offset it.

The very wealthy are hardly drawing state pensions!

How do you know this? because I do not believe it

Younger voters voting to cut state pension are voting against their future selves. The UK state pension is already too low. I wish more understood that any pension cut now they vote for will be x2 for every 20yrs they are from pension age. So a 48yr old voting to reduce pensions by £500/yr is voting to cut their future pension by £1000/yr. A 28yr old voting to reduce pensions £500/yr is voting to cut their future pension by £2000/yr
(Present values of money, actual figures will be higher)

So you want to reduce the cost of visas, with this reduced cost how would you make up the shortfall in funds?

Thing is, if you don't qualify for a state pension, you get benefits instead, you're not really in a much worse position. If all you have is a state pension are you actually any better off financially than somebody who worked abroad their whole life then came home to retire with no money, assets or pension and claims elderly benefits?

What ChatGPT hasn’t factored in is behaviour change. This isn’t so easy to predict.

how will this affect behaviour? It is very easy for ChatGPT to trot out a survey that showed X% of people would support Y,Z policy. But quite another when voters are faced paying more to get less. Almost everyone would say they want a fairer society- but very few would want to lose the privileges they have.

look at increased national insurance = staff losing jobs, small businesses struggling, or not growing.

increasing tax on businesses = moving to lower tax jurisdictions

VAT on school fees= parents who struggle to pay fees now taking kids out of private sector and into school system. These small businesses ( which private schools are) going out of business and taking jobs with them. It might not affect huge numbers, but it all adds up and hasn’t achieved any positive goal ( such as greater equality)

This would be electoral suicide if done retrospectively, and unfair on the young if not
What we could do:
Stop higher rate relief on pension contributions
Charge pensioners national insurance,rather than stopping at state pension age
Make all the little age based allowances means tested - pharmacy charges, bus passes and the like

Im 60, expect to have a private pension of about 1/3 my salary, so would get very little state pension under your scheme, but would probably be OK with the points I've suggested.

I would not, but then I am neurodivergent. Shared housing would be a complete nightmare.