To think this is a real possibility in the future? (State pension)

[TheOtherBoleynSister]

I am 34 and ever since I started working people have said don’t rely on there being a state pension. So I’m pretty pessimistic about it.

I honestly believe that for people under 40, the universal state pension (paid regardless of income or capital to those who have paid NI for a certain number of years) won’t exist. That there will be no qualifying ‘age’, and instead older people will be the same as the rest of the population when it comes to benefit eligibility ie. Have to be certified as too ill or physically unable to work, and get UC if income is low and savings are below £16k. In other words, being a certain age won’t entitle us to any benefit like it does now.

In this awful very bleak future, older people who can no longer work, who have savings/money above the threshold or private pensions, will need to rely solely on the money they have unless or until they get to the point where they now qualify for benefits.

Of course I don’t want this to happen, but with all the stories about the cost of pensions and the rising number of older people it feels inevitable. But the reality is many people’s private pensions won’t be nearly enough to last (but maybe they will be forced to spend them before any help), and there’s also talk in the press of some wanting to do away with ‘generous’ public sector pensions (which are not as generous as they used to be, albeit they are better than a lot of private schemes).

I am quite aware of pensions due to older relatives and friends who are of that age, but many people my age haven’t a clue about them or how they work. I do think we will be seeing a real disaster in less than 30 years, but people don’t care as it’s someone else’s/ tomorrow’s problem.

Well no I won’t read 152 pages of a fiscal report, I doubt many will, but clearly you have so maybe you could provide some key points for discussion on here? Where have I said the pension scheme doesn’t need reform? I don’t need to provide evidence for something I haven’t said.

Tosh

So all those saying in the future there either should or will be a basic universal income where working will be optional depending on how nice a life you want how exactly would that work?

Let’s say everyone gets £1000 a month to pay for essentials ONLY. It won’t leave a penny for anything fun or nice. Housing. Bills. Food. That’s it. Cool. Plenty of people wouldn’t mind that I’m sure.

What about families? Two 18 year olds decide they are happy living on their combined UBI. So £2000 total and they will not be working at all. They then have a child. So they need to have more added to their UBI right to pay for that child. As everyone on here points out on benefit threads it’s not the child’s fault the parent won’t work. So this couple now have say £2500 between them a month.

They continue to have a few kids over the next few years (not much else to do really as they don’t work) so now this couple are getting £4500 a month for them and the kids. Some of the kids need to start school. But they can’t find a school anywhere nearby. Why? No one wants to be a teacher. Everyone in their local town was also happy to be on UBI only so no one bothered to train as a teacher. But they manage eventually to find a school an hour drive away.

Now because they need to be contactable by the school “essentials” now include WiFi, phones for both parents, a car to drive the kids to this school miles away and pay for activities like sports or dance etc (if anyone in this town can be bothered to work doing that of course) so their UBI needs to be topped up to pay for these things.

And of course trips out like to theme parks shouldn’t just be for those children whose parents work! How othering would that be?? It’s not the children’s fault! They should be entitled to the same upbringing as everyone else. So more gets added on “for the children”. (Pretty sure most theme parks would be closed down though due to lack of workers as well)

Then one of their children is diagnosed with disability which means they have a limited diet of what they can/will eat. So they now need to get an extra “disability UBI credit for this”. So now despite the country only meaning to give everyone this basic universal income of £1000 each this family now bring in £8000 a month.

Now the kids are teens. They are bored shitless. They are desperately waiting until they turn 18 to also receive their £1000 a month UBI. They really fancy going to the cinema. But hang on there isn’t any. No one wants to work in one for the sake of a few extra pounds. The town tried to reopen one a few years before that and advertised for staff. The parents in this family said how disgusting it was that no one applied for these jobs! Why weren’t the local people thinking of the local children??? Obviously THEY wouldn’t be applying for one though. THEY had too much going on and didn’t need the money anyway with their £8000 a month.

Your advice is one of despair. Do nothing.Trust in the employers? Hope for the best? In fact women form the majority of Union members 2024-5 figures. Up 134,000 on the previous year. Women lead 21 of the 47 TUC recognised unions. If you don't like what your Union is doing then vote the leader out. (As Unison - the major Health Workers Union has just done ). Unions are democratic organisations.
But don't pretend that you will get anywhere/any concessions/ decent pay and conditions etc without a strong union. Don't claim that the benefits which we have now were not fought for by Union members (often to their own detriment. Remember the Tolpuddle Martyrs who were transported for trying to form a Union.)

They wouldn’t get anything extra for children. £1000 each would be it. If they want children they have to work.

Exactly. It wouldn’t work. Surely inflation would rise so much UBI would be meaningless as everything would cost more anyway.

So in this utopia (or dystopia) the state gives everyone free money but doesn’t care about children in poverty?

I suspect that any basic income is likely to be a few days late and a few dollars short, of expectations if not real needs.

IMHO, I think we need to rewrite the political landscape so that geriatric, demented maniacs are ineligible. If the oldest person eligible to hold office was 60, then that person would have 15- 20 years to live with their choices; they would have to justify decisions to their younger relatives.

Not sure which were the Great Civilizations which were democratic in the past??? Surely not Rome, China, India, Sparta etc. Is it an apology for Dictatorship? Nazi style? There is of course no evidence that Tytlier wrote this at all. It appeared in Oklahoma in 1951. Tytlier was a Scot. He died in 1815!

And not everyone would fill their free time in the way you would do. If my exDH didn't have to work he would become a hermit and rarely leave the house.

I am retired, and thoroughly enjoying it. Would I have wanted to live my whole life like this? Hell no - and I'm a person who solely worked to live and didn't really enjoy my jobs. However, I'm pleased that I had the opportunity to work, to contribute to society, to meet a vast array of people I would never otherwise have met and to learn things I would never have wanted to by choice. I couldn't wait to leave school at 16 and begin work, and other than regretting my choice of jobs I wouldn't have had it any other way.

It's a ariy fairy world where people can just please themselves and do what they want.

People who won’t work can’t have children. Surely that suits you?

Nonsense! In 1974, when I went to university, under 10% of school leavers were deemed university material. While I am sure there were still a few dozy colleges that took the "right" candidates, it wasn't most.

How can you stop them though?

@Smouty84 but that’s the way it’s going without a ubi! People realising they can get benefits for things like anxiety and depression (easy to exaggerate). Benefits with with all the add ons (heating help etc) ‘pays’ more then working even more so when you factor in not having to buy work clothes, pay to get to work then you’re quids in. On top of that let’s encourage people to have more kids by lifting the 2 child cap because evidently we need more people to do jobs that don’t exist or that noone wants to do. Let the other mugs work at the shop, cinema etc!

Everyone aged 18 and over would get UBI, and if you wanted more money to say, buy a house or a new car, you would need to work. There would be no Personal Allowance as that would be covered by the UBI, so everything you earned on top would be taxed.

Being a parent is work.

But AI is here and there is no stopping it! Whether or not it's good for society is academic because the genie is out of the bottle. DD was saying the other week that one company had let go 2000 coders. Multiply that a few times and that's a lot of people searching for the few jobs there are. I tell any young person I meet that they should get a trade. These jobs are much safer.

Absolutely this.
A flat rate of maybe more than a £1000 but no other extras for children or housing..
If you want those then you work for it.
Otherwise there is no point in having all the extra top ups as the country couldn’t afford it anyway.

But they could be in Further Education, either college or sixth form. If that figure is correct, that's an awful lot of NEETs!

Not if they did not have all the add ons for children and housing.

Yes but they wouldn’t be paid any extra UBI for it.

But UBI would get rid of a huge amount of DWP employees, so there would be a saving there. My NDN is a UC Decision Maker and some of the cases are really complex, so very time-consuming. Much more straightforward to knock out this layer of bureaucracy.

Historically, it was designed to be universal to get older people out of work and make space for the young.

That problem hasn't gone away and if anything, with costs and difficulties of gaining employment in later years, it isn't a problem that will go away. Which means top roles won't become free, which trickles down to the squeezed middle - not progressed enough to earn enough for a good retirement, but earning too much for a state pension, so they sit in their jobs.

No workforce movement means no youth employment.

So I think the government will always need to incentivise leaving, unless they expect employers to take the legal risk of putting poor old Steve out to pasture after decades of service and capability because he falls asleep promptly at noon and they want a battle about whether that's a health and safety risk and months of drawn out sickness.

We need coders to use AI. Coders just need to move with the times, like everything.

Yes, at the same time as those coders were let go, another company (medical lab or similar) was recruiting coders, but I have no idea where these were and whether or not they were WFH or hybrid roles.