To think statutory maternity pay should be the same amount as the state pension?

[BridgertonToBe]

I don’t have children, probably never will. But I do think SMP is shockingly low, and if the government is really worried about the birth rate they should look at this.

Many women on maternity only get SMP and no enhanced package from their employer. It’s current set at a maximum of £187.18 a week for 39 weeks. If mothers want to be off for 52, it will be unpaid.

The new state pension is £230.25 a week. While those on maternity may have a partner to support them, they probably won’t have any other income while many pensioners also have a private pension alongside the SP.

AIBU to think that if £230.25 is needed by all pensioners over 66 for a basic standard of living (who probably have less outgoings than a young family), SMP should be the same?

If we can afford to pay the state pension to every pensioner for the rest of their lives out of NI, we can afford to support new working mothers birthing and raising the next generation of workers for a short amount of time. The financial hit is a big deterrent for people having children. I also think SMP should be paid from birth until the child’s first birthday.

My point is that many people in their 60s, 50s or even 40s won't have 'years' to pay into a pension if they started in 2012. I would have thought that was obvious.

You paid for the pensions before you, not for your own. Today’s workers are paying for the pensions of today, and the babies born today will be paying for pensions in the future.

You can also prepare in advance for your pension.

As it has always been. Why has it suddenly become an issue?

This

Because lots of people are spending at least 20 years retired, often more, in varying degrees of health. While it’s amazing that health care has progressed to an extent that we are keeping many people alive well into their 80s, 90s and even 100s, it is exponentially increasing the amount it costs to both pay these people’s pensions alongside their care costs.

Because the number of workers to pensioners is decreasing and will reduce further due to the declining birth rate.

Which is why child care is the real issue as it goes on for 4 or 5 years.

The answer isn't to continue to grow the population. The planet can't cope. Our infrastructure can't cope. The answer is to live differently to make things more sustainable. However, few seem willing to do that.

Haha, You have much longer to plan and save for old age than pregnancy!

Ok, but in that case how will things be funded, if we don’t have the young workers to do it?

The ratio of workers to pensions has reduced from 5:1 when it was set up to 3:1 now and is apparently set to reduce even more.

Well, as long as they don't make you wait for it for five years after you've had your baby, then part way through the five years, change it to seven years and part way through that change it to eight years ...

What does The answer is to live differently to make things more sustainable actually, tangibly mean though? While trying to be as sustainable as possible is a great thing, fundamentally we will need (lots) of people to provide the physical care of the ever aging population, and more people again to pay taxes to pay the cares salaries. Maybe at a planet level we are done with people - which by default means, if we don’t want to support our native population to have more children, we need to embrace a lot more immigration.

How about Carers Allowance being increased, it’s currently £83.30 a week for giving a minimum of 35 hours of care.

"if people don't have children you will not recieve a state pension."

That would create a whole host of problems eg poverty for some retired people, how would you deal with not all people having the choice of whether or not to have children, or that not all people should have children and by incentivising it you might get people who have children for the wrong reasons.

"we know it's best for children for them to be raised by their own mothers, for at minimum the first three years of life"

I don't agree with this. I think nurseries and childminders play an important role in allowing children to experience new things and new people. It's also an assumption that being with the mum is best - what if the mum is unhappy or isolated or wants to work, and not all mums/parents are good, some children are far better off with other care givers for some part of their week.

The childcare thing doesn’t kick in until they’re 3 in Scotland 😔

It’s already causing issues though isn’t it. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS):

• The number of people aged 65+ is growing significantly
• The number of people aged 85+ is rising fastest
• The working-age population is growing much more slowly

Add to that, additional NHS costs, the unsustainable cost of maintaining the triple lock and the rising social care costs and the shift in demographics is a huge huge problem.

Apologies if my comment was poorly worded, I mean that if people in general do not have children then you (meaning the person I replied to, and of course everyone else) will not be able to receive a state pension as there will not be enough working age adults to pay for it. Thus, freezing or cutting state pensions now to put those freed up funds into incentivising childbearing is in the long term interests of society.

It's not an assumption that being with mum is best, it's based on decades of research and is a proven fact at this point. Children under a certain age receive no benefit from full time socialisation with others their own age.

It means more communal living, more communal eating, less food waste, less waste overall, mending rather than buying new, less plastic tat, people living within their means, societal expectations of what Xmas and birthdays look like are reduced, more public transport, not living in houses with more bedrooms than we need, growing more of our own food. Basically lifestyles that means we can save more to prepare for old age.

Auto enrol is a very small piece of a much wider picture, I’d have thought that’s pretty obvious 😂. Or are you honestly trying to claim people have only known about private pensions since auto enrol?

Except mat leave is approx 12 months. Old age is for far longer.

Well to be blunt it means that the younger generations should adapt and make sacrifices while the current pensioners continue to enjoy their state pension which they have simultaneously “paid into all their lives” and “funded the generation above” 🙄.

The way some people talk, you’d think private pensions didn’t exist pre-2012. When actually, many private pension schemes used to be far more generous than they are now. Including final salary pension schemes which barely exist these days.

The difference is, lower paid workers were less likely to have been in a scheme, whereas now they’re auto enrolled. But even for lower paid workers now, the amount they will pay in will not amount to much. When I was on a lower salary (but higher than minimum wage) my forecast for private pension was less than £2k a year - this was with the minimum contributions from me and my employer, if I remained on the same salary with inflation until state pension age. Better than nothing but it’s hardly going to make low paid workers comfortable in retirement, especially as they will be older when they receive the state pension. In fact they will likely be worse off as they will need to wait several years longer.

So is that people living and eating communally within age cohorts? Or within extended families?

A mixture of both. Not everyone has extended family. Wouldn't have to be age cohorts necessarily e.g. neighbours sharing things.