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.

It’s the triple lock ratcheting system that means it goes up at a faster rate than earnings. Gordon Brown only introduced it FOR A COUPLE OF YEARS then Labour fell out of power, the Tories were too scared to ditch it and the state pension is getting ever more unaffordable and unfair on current tax payers. If it goes on forever there will be no public money whatsoever other than state pension being paid out. No NHS, or defence, or roads or anything. Just state pension.

Agree, I don’t understand why this ‘getting back what you paid in’ only seems to apply to state pensions?

Many of us pay for loads of things, services and benefits we will never use.
People without children don’t complain that they ‘haven’t got back what they paid in’ as they’ve paid for other people’s child benefit, education, maternity and NHS care etc. Healthy people don’t complain that they haven’t had the same money spent on them via the NHS as someone would if they have an illness.

The state pension is not a great amount for most pensioners. Thank goodness a raise is guaranteed!

Don’t forget the amount paid out for unemployed

I think people who are pensioners now are financially less literate and had less opportunity for private pensions than the working generations today

Ha. Tell that to my parents! Teacher & degree educated engineers in their 70s. They, my inlaws and all their friends got crazily generous DB schemes with fantastic inflation links. My dads pension is double what mine will ever be despite me earning double the equivalent of his salary today and me putting 25% a year in my DC pension.

It shouldn’t be guaranteed if average earnings growth and inflation is negative. Under triple lock, it would still go up 2.5%, even if the pot it’s taken from has got smaller.

It should be tied just to wage growth.

Otherwise what happens is that wealthy pensioners retain their wealth, and even build it, whilst other poorer people keep paying for them to have a better standard of living than they do.

It is not what it was meant to be. It was meant to provide a basic safety net so that those who were poor could have some dignity and security in their old age.

It's far beyond that now - and with longevity way beyond what we could ever have imagined, universal state pension is now unworkable.

Agree, I don’t understand why this ‘getting back what you paid in’ only seems to apply to state pensions?

Because it was set up with a very specific link to national insurance contributions, you have an NI record of qualifying years that determines the amount of state pension you are entitled to.

They’re paying for them to have £12k a year, hardly a better standard of living. It only seems better because many have no housing costs having paid their mortgages off. Those that don’t own property aren’t flush.

@Allseeingallknowing The state pension is double or more universal income for a single person £170-230 per week -v- £92.

So I think it's plenty - and the evidence is all around. Those on holiday, those eating out, those out spending - more likely to be pensioners.

I'm glad someone sees this. The triple lock will have to go at some point else the state pension will eventually more than average earnings, which is madness. But I bet even then the Daily Mail would go mental about how poor old pensioners are being picked on. It'll be made into the double lock (inflation and earnings), soon after a new government get in, and then just the single lock (inflation), in similar circumstances a few parliaments down the line.

Talk of how there won't be a state pension at all is well overdone. But as the benefits of auto-enrolment are realised in decades to come the political heat will come out of reducing the generosity of the state pension and of introducing an element of means testing (which can easily be done without reducing the incentive to save at all - I don't know why people are so black-and-white about that). If people are using the prospect of there being no state pension as a catalyst to sort their private pension out then great, that's no bad thing.

Then you need to join a union and make sure your company provides a good pension scheme.

You don't think that companies just offered benefits like retirement pensions, sick pay, equal pay for women, maternity pay etc etc do you? Out of the goodness of their hearts!

Or old age pensions were handed out because the Government suddenly felt we should have them? No. Your fathers and mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers, great grand parents etc
fought long and hard for these benefits. Often being sacked if they campaigned through their Unions etc. Or were blacklisted by employers ( couldn't get a job, like my uncle) or were imprisoned for sedition ( like another uncle who spoke at meeting supporting the General Strike. ) The lesson is eternal vigilance. Yes many companies will want to pay poverty wages so their share holders and owners can off shore £millions but you don't have to allow it. You have to fight back, join a union, campaign, strike if necessary.

I think you’ll find people do complain quite vociferously about those things.

If you’re worried about not getting a state pension the answer lies in your hands. Never vote for any party that even mentions changing it. Since the Waspi fiasco legislation has made it illegal to make any pension changes without a minimum of ten years notice. Democracy is quite useful sometimes.

But they’d be quite daft to have thought it would be survivable as a sole income. It’s a top up to the rest of your pension savings

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage'

Alexander Fraser Tytlier

Who’d join a union these days? How much did her union help Sandie Peggie? This is a women’s forum and unions loathe women with a passion. Take your misogynist clap trap elsewhere.

Without a union at Ford in Dagenham there would be no equal pay legislation. Many unions are led by women. That was an incredibly rude and unnecessary response to a perfectly sensible post.

You’re either in a unionised environment or you’re not. If you employer doesn’t recognise a union what’s the point? It’s just a waste of subs

They won’t scrap the state pension, but the triple lock has to go, it’s unaffordable.

The SPA will keep rising and inflation will negatively affect it, but you couldn’t scrap it entirely - some people would starve.

Those people would be entitled to benefits, as they would be now.

The state pension is a benefit.

Yes I know, but I mean benefits that are not age restricted / tied to a certain age.

You make it sound like the hoary old unionist blokes conceded that women had a point and ought to be paid properly. Not the case at all. Women fought their own battle to get equal pay legislation through. Nothing to do with the unions.

There would be uproar from those who now wouldn’t receive one. It’d be political suicide and for most people auto enrollment pensions won’t be enough to live on without the SP. So many would need pension credit that savings to HMT would be minimal.

The issue is falling birth rates meaning not enough workers paying in to support the number of pensioners in 30 years time…

The women fought their battle as part of a union. If you’re going to argue with me at least get your facts straight.