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?

No, I mean I don’t agree with that at all. I think everyone paying NI currently should get one - kids or not. Just not sure they will.

Also, just to add to the list of stupidity, I haven’t had a partner since my 20s so there’s no joint income.

Thank you very much.

Well that’s great but I won’t be getting a penny, I will make sure of that so everyone else - fill your boots if there’s anything left

For skilled jobs in the private sector?

@Dfdd Im not arguing they can’t save for a pension just that saving for a decent one will be hard & there is a lot of demands on their incomes.

There are lots of places where rents are cheaper but they don’t tend to be full of jobs or have low commuting costs for they? Some of my DHs younger colleagues pay £50 a day to travel into the city from Surrey/Kent etc, that’s £600 just on commuting! Their partners often do similar. DH pays £11 a day because we live in London.

even then yes

Perhaps you need to appreciate your privilege and not try to make people feel bad because they have taken a different path.

I would have considered myself mildly successful in life, But then someone like you comes along making me feel genuinely so worthless (as most of your faux surprise comments were directed at me) is your ‘thing’ then I guess that’s fine,

I hope you don’t speak to people like that in real life because nobody deserves to feel like that

It's a sad thing, and another generational difference, that working all your adult life and never claiming a penny still isn't seen as enough, today. If you haven't anticipated every possible future outcome, or sufficiently denied yourself now to pay for a 'later' that may not even come, you are treated as you have been, here.

It's a shocking indictment on the modern attitude towards lower income bracket workers.

We could start reversing the mistakes of the 90s and 00s and restore our brilliant adult education system before the Polys were turned into Unis and Colleges were turned into 16-18 year old training schools. Back then, people who'd gone down the wrong route, or missed out on "normal" education routes had lots of options to retrain, upskill, get new qualifications, etc., Now all that's gone. One you've been spat out of the education system at 18 or 21, you're beggared with relatively few options to claw your way back.

The thing is, salaried wages have stagnated but NMW has increased every year. I see job ads with the same salary the organisation was advertising 4-5 years ago. Employers have no choice but to pay those on minimum wage the increase but they’re not always increasing salaries for those just above it.

It seems some organisations are offering 35 hour a week FT contracts rather than 37.5 hours to get round it. But jobs in the 28-30k bracket are not much above minimum wage now and yet employers want people with a plethora of skills and x years experience to do them. I’ve even seen jobs in central London offering that wage, once you factor in commuting costs, you would be better off working in your local supermarket.

When their rent alone is over half their take home pay and they also have to pay commuting costs, utilities, food, etc., there's really nothing left unless they're being paid well over NMW which is pretty rare for graduates these days.

My view people who have "paid in" deserve it because they've paid it. But we need to transition away from this because it's unsustainable.

Just seen this. Offering salary of £20-£25k for a part qualified accountant with experience. Basically minimum wage!

www.icsuk.com/careers/part-qualified-sme-accountant/

Someone early said state pension is the same as a 500k pension pot. That’s a lot of savings to come up with, especially in a cost of living crisis. Chat cpt tells me it’s about £250 a month your entire working life assuming you work for just over 40 years.

and that’s just to make up for th state pension you aren’t going to get. Which people have pointed out is just meant to not leave you dying of starvation. Nevermind saving for somerthing better.

That surprises me as you clearly think some people are too stupid, going by your comments.

Or do you mean ‘paid in’ to a private pension rather than the state pension?

Which once you ad just it for inflation is actual madness. I started on the equivalent of 28 grand a year.
In 1997 without professional qualifications

I was actually thinking of educating people about financial planning, however I agree that upskilling would be easier if people could do a course one night a week at the local FE college.

The options now seem incredibly expensive too.

I did adult education college but actually with the internet, upskilling has never been so accessible. Even if you don’t drive, you can upskill to your heart’s content.

I definitely had it easier. Left school in the early 90s. No minimum wage then, but I was working on the factory floor for a bottom end wage, yet managed to rent a flat on my own, and afford bills, etc. couldn't do that now on a minimum wage job. Got a 95% mortgage with my then fiance at the age of 21 with little difficulty during the stable market of 1997. House cost £56,000. A 3 bedroomed mid terrace. Paid off the mortgage over 25 years, sold it for £200,000. The chances of anyone on a not too stellar combined income being mortgage free at 51 like I am is going to be a lot lower for the generation after me. And I wasn't a lucky outlier at the time.

And during that time, I had an NHS dentist, could see my doctor on the day I booked an appointment, could have gone to uni, had I done it at aged 18 on the State's dime with no worry about paying back any loan, had a few years of married person's tax allowance before they ditched it, and when, in 1999, I finally did go back to uni as a mature student and they'd just brought in course fees and loans, the cost was negligible.

Yes, I was better off, and I'm fucking grateful. I am glad I had my appendix out when I wasn't left lying in a hospital corridor for hours, didn't have to sit in A &E because I got a doctor's appointment when I needed it and she referred me, so I went straight from the ambulance to the ward.

Yes, I know this isn't everyone's story from those times. But it's a damn sight more people's story than it will be for the next generation's 50 plus year olds.

Formal qualifications are ridiculously expensive in terms of online teaching as they're now the domain on private firms charging huge fees. Long gone are the days of doing, say, professional accountancy exams teaching at the local college for £50 per exam - now you're looking at several hundred per exam, meaning thousands for the full course.

Yes, there are "cheap" or free online courses, but they're not for formal exams and are often pretty low level and whatever "certificate" you get at the end often isn't known/recognised by employers.

Again NMW is around £24.7 if you work FT?

Back when my DS started work (late 2023) NMW yielded £21.6k FT, but he was on £28k. And this wasn't even in London. And the firm underpays compared to competitors.

But he contributes a bit to his pension and his employer matches.

If you've contributed via NI to a state pension you deserve something because your NI has paid the state pension of others.

It’s a very foolish person who chooses a house deposit over tax free pension contributions. Clearly someone who doesn’t understand compound interest.