Who is going to pay for your state pension/ care in old age?

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Apparently birth rates are falling, and this is putting future pensions (and I would imagine general tax income) in jeopardy as the population will proportionally age.

What's the solution? Should we just write off our paid for "right" to a state pension and state support for care in older age?

Does this change your view on public investment in supporting people to have children if you otherwise thought this was a personal choice and you should support/ pay for your own children?

AIBU to think that NI contributions for "pension" is essentially government mandated mis-selling and state pension will go out the window in the next few decades?

You mean, 'pay a private company a nice little earner'? I didn't have a job with a company pension scheme until I was in my 30s. In my early 20s I did what I thought was the responsible thing and looked at a private pension. I wasn't on high wages at the time. They advised I contract out of SERPS. When DH and I applied for a mortgage, we had a visit from a financial advisor who told me I should never have contracted out of SERPS as I wasn't earning enough, and the money I thought was being put into my pension was, in fact, making me nothing whatsoever. I contracted back in again, fortunately it had only been two years. Then there was the whole Rober Maxwell business.

I never really trusted private pension companies after all that. I have put money away, yes, and money goes into the workplace pension, but even workplace pensions don't come with absolute guarantees that you'll get out what you think you will based on early projections. It's all based on investments, and most pension schemes state in the small print your money can go down as well as up. It's good to have one, yes, but I wouldn't be throwing huge amounts of money into one basket, especially if you haven't got a lot to start with.

I don't care how much notice I had.
It wouldn't matter a jot if they had told me this in 1984 the day after I started working.

We still have to slog on almost a decade more than people born a few years earlier. And we're entitled to fucking moan about it because...You think everyone is in a position to have started pension funds?
That's some privilege talking right there!!
Some people have slogged to just pay the mortgage/ rent and put food on the table for over forty years. All the while making their NI contributions. Why should we be happy to continue working till we bloody drop.

Some of the thinking on this thread stinks.
" But my doctor and consultant friends all retired at fifty"
"Most people are still healthy and chipper till their seventies"
"You were warned , you should have saved, like me!"

Nobody expects a luxury lifestyle funded retirement. Nobody.
But fuck me if I'm supposed to be happy about a measurably more miserable financial future than the generation before.

I wasn't talking about specifically private provision. My fault for wording it badly. I simply meant that everyone knows that they need to retire at some point and that it's never prudent to rely solely on the state pension. If literally doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out the benefits change and adapt all the time to changing relatives. Assuming the state pension isn't subject to the same pressures is madness!

There is an element of personal responsibility with all of this. Why would people assume that young people would be happy to fund their pensions for decades on end when it's highly likely they won't be afforded the same privilege when they get to the same age? Demographics have changed, what was once sustainable is now unsustainable. We all have to pay the price for this. Young and old. If you didn't take steps to protect yourself by giving yourself another income source in retirement then it makes sense that you will feel this more than others.

I agree with all your posts on this thread x

Nobody is happy to work until they drop but the reality is that this is the premise that most pension funds were largely built on in the past and what the state pension originated from. In the 1960s the average person claimed their state pension for 10-12 years, now it is 20-25 years. The former is a lot more sustainable than the latter when people are often only working 40ish years.

You look to the generation before who were unbelievably lucky. Look at every generation before and after this and you will see you are still one of the lucky ones.

You've never worked a day in your life at all? Crikey, you are lucky.

I worked for a year or so.
My life is not a fairytale, regardless.

It’s not a choice for the many of us without children.

No one on here can predict the future. Life will do as it does. Might be good, might not be. 🤷‍♀️

I suspect the vast majority of people who are retiring now in their 50s are public sector workers, who have somehow managed to convince the rest of society that their jobs are uniquely stressful and they 'deserve' to retire early.
Mostly funded by the taxpayer of course.
It's an absolute scandal and it needs to be addressed urgently, but as this Govt are the party of benefits claimants and public sector workers, that looks unlikely.
**I know the pensions are not as generous now, but you can still see adverts for employer contributions of 20%+, which is vastly, vastly higher than private sector contributions, which are usually 2-5%.
And who are the employers? The Government. And how is the Government funded? By taxpayers of course.

Lots of public sector workers get paid less than their private counterparts. The old pensions might have let you retire earlier but they don't anymore on the new plans. Private pensions can also be taken from 55 and some private pensions used to be defined benefit too.
There's a retention issue with lots of areas in the public sector following pay freezes and less than inflation pay rises, where people are leaving for private sector. So yes the pensions might be good but they are weighed up against some of the negatives that come with working with the public sector. People who work in the public sector are also tax payers. There are no bonuses, you can't ask for a pay rise, resources have been cut left right and centre, it's not a case of public sector workers all sitting on their arses waiting until they turn 60, living the life of luxury.
Unless you can find people to volunteer to do all these jobs, many of which need certain qualifications and experience, doctors, nurses, accountants etc, then they need to be paid

I thought the pension was to make up for salary. When I qualified (chartered accountant) the newly qualified salaries in the private sector was sooooooo far ahead of the public sector. Even now in a changed role, the only think a public sector equivalent has compared to what I can get in the private sector is pension.

My son is 25 and on £30k. It's an early career salary and for his industry this is seen as the low side. His friends are on £40k with a sizeable on at least £50k plus.

I don't know your life story. Maybe you've had challenges and setbacks in life. But you've bene working for 30+ years now (I assume), have you not done anything at all to upskill yourself and take responsibility for your life?

Nope.
The Lucky ones may be the public sector workers, the higher earners, the middle classes with their pension funds. They are the ones who can afford to be philosophical and stoical about their future.

The unlucky ones are the lower paid, the unskilled but necessary workers, the manual laborers. The women who've spent forty years on a full timetable, who get back home after a shift and shoulder the burden of care of children, household or elderly relatives. The people who've worked long and hard, paying their way in life, just about making ends meet while paying into the system and never taking a penny out.

It's not about comparing ourselves to the kids who were sent down the mines at age 8, it's about taking an honest look around and seeing exactly which workers have been able to provide themselves with a safety net, or secure early retirement and which will be shouldering the burden of this shit show for almost another decade.

Im 59 honestly im lucky l accidently have to final salary pensions, l never thought about pensions when l was younger.
I cant work now due to being a carer to my DP, l will be fine wont be going on cruises but can live comfortably, will be taking one of the pensions soon to top up carers allowance/attendance allowence.
Im always telling my kids to pay as much as they can into thier pensions l doubt they will get a state pension in 30 years.

Sometimes you can end up on the wrong end of those stats. My mum has paid very little into pensions as she became a SAHM early in life and only had a 'dinner lady' job when we were older. She's 90 and has a good income due to my late dad's private pension and pension credits etc.

Meanwhile, my DH, who paid full contributions, got cancer and died aged 59, so saw none of his.

The low paid and unskilled workers have been the biggest beneficiaries of the invention of the welfare state alongside those that can't or won't work. What do you think life was like for them before this?

We simply can't afford this welfare system as a country. We have amassed a huge amount of public debt trying to keep the show on the road but it's clear to almost everyone now that this is unsustainable. The idea that you can work for 40 years in a low paid job, being a net beneficiary of the welfare state all this time and then retire on a triple locked pension is clearly nonsensical unless we magic up a magic money tree.

Public sector pensions are another issue entirely but the rich haven't benefited from the welfare state or largely from public sector pensions either. It's tiring to try and pin everything on the rich. We have unrealistic expectations of so much now. 20/25 years of a financially comfortable retirement after working only this. It doesn't take a rocket scientist that not many of us can keep doing this unless we debite an awful lot of our own resources towards this. Middle class or not.

I didn’t think final salary pensions existed anymore?

to have a fully functioning for profit system you would need population limits because in any given economic system there's only so much that can be run for profit

Very old pensions from 30 years ago, l suppose they are called something else now, all l know is l paid in £3k and one is now worth £130k...the other one im not sure

I often wonder if it's budgeting skills though. I know many people who do not earn lots and some are able to save and others not. Similar with people who earn above national average, some can save and others will spend through large incomes. It's not just about income but expenditure too. I watch the shows on TV where people appear to waste so much money on alsorts. Not trying to judge but I have found the budgeting sites are brilliant at looking at where savings can be made.

So you think public sector workers don’t pay tax?

Final salary pensions are now very rare in the private sector, for which you can thank one Gordon Brown whose first act as Chancellor was to remove the pension dividend credit. It went almost unnoticed at the time but over a few years, it made final salary pensions unaffordable, hence businesses switched new joiners into direct contribution pension systems where the employee shoulders the risk of investment performance.

That we have respectable pension savings is because I devoted several hours every few weeks to the administration and management of the fund and its assets over a 25 year period to keep it compliant with HMRC's changing rules and regulations. And we still work (part time now) at 70. Plus, we are still tax payers, including corporation tax.

It was nice of you to join to post on this thread…

Wow thanks.

I’m perfectly capable of doing research, thanks. But I could put my entire salary in a pension from now til requirement and it still amounts to fuck all!