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?

How old are you @dinbin?

Immigrants.

@SLAMSreadmore did you even read my post? Why do you think easier equals challenge free?

What has that got to do with my reply to yours?

Nothing. It’s got a lot to do with your assertion that life was easier in the last 30 years of the twentieth century.

@Lifestooshort71 indeed!

My job involves pensions & when I receive an opt out part of me is like “don’t do it” but equally I see their payslips & can see the deductions for student loans, know what the pension scheme contributions are and realise something has to give if they are trying to save for a deposit.

How old are you? I’m sure your age will equally reflect your assertions.

Let me guess? 😆

I’m 40 and have long ago assumed that I wouldn’t get a state pension in the way it is currently.
I have an OK workplace pension (not amazing) that costs me a huge amount of deductions every month. The return won’t be great (no idea how I’d live on that alone) but I think it will be enough to disqualify me from a state pension which I think will end up being non universal and reserved for those who have not got any private pension.

I think the way it is sold as pay in to pay out IS wrong and inaccurate. As working people are paying to fund the current pensions (and general tax requirements ans services)

I think that state pensions are so untouchable at the moment with the triple lock etc that no political party has dared touch it. This is a problem that is just being pushed further down the line.

I agree that people my age and similar will not have a universal state pension like we have right now despite the rhetoric of paying for it.
I therefore thing that working families such as ours should have more help generally (we qualify for very little). The cost of living is ridiculous and living payday to payday while bringing up a child leaves no extra room for investment in private pensions.

My age means I have personal experience of those years. I’d bet my house you haven’t. And I haven’t asserted anything.

Yes, I do think the generations below mine have been particularly shafted as a group. In re: pensions, I am pretty confident I will get a state pension. I am equally confident my nephew, who is 22, will get absolutely nothing, despite the fact that he is paying his NI, and will continue paying it.

At his age, I had already been living outside of the family home for four years. Despite the fact that he is already earning more by current standards than I was at his age, he as absolutely no chance of a nice flat on his own with no help from the parents, like I managed when I was four years younger than him. He is nowhere near having a deposit for a mortgage, even with his girlfriend.

It's all much harder for him than it was for me. And that isn't because he isn't working as hard, etc. His money doesn't go anything like as far as mine did. He's in the early stages of an engineering career and he can't do what I could do as a factory floor worker. He will not be mortgage free by 51 as I am. And the primary reason I am in that situation is because of Timing! Not because I was better, more sensible, more resilient, but because I was damn lucky to have been the right age in the 90s to ride the perfect wave of cheap rents, a stable housing market, and a healthy job market. The foundations I was able to build with my husband at that time have meant I have had a security those starting out in the equivalent of my position, without family financial backing, simply don't have. It was possible for me to do so much more from a very low starting point.

And that, to me, is the biggest difference between mine and my parent's generation, and that of my nephew.

This. Except my employer scheme is awful (matched 4%) but I contribute 11% to counter this and save long term outside of my pension too.

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

Was the above not you? 😆

@ObelixtheGaul yes, timing is the big factor. My immigrant parents bought their 2nd family house on one salary in London in their early 30s. You can’t afford that part of London now without serious wealth. I couldn’t afford to buy there so moved to a different part of London for a flat & then again for a small house (and that was with help, I lived at home with cheap rent which was saved for me) but I couldn’t afford to buy my house now & probably not anywhere in London since I went p/t once I had dc. It’s unlikely my dc will buy in London at all even with help.

Yep, the generations behind us are definitely in a worse situation financially than we were, and I dread to think what type of " retirement" they will face.

It's like we're pulling up the ladder behind us bit by bit..and then telling them it's their own fault.

It's like we're pulling up the ladder behind us bit by bit..and then telling them it's their own fault.

Exactly, what is the motivation for it do you think?

Re: higher education : far fewer people went to university back in the day. When I went, it was around 8%. It was actually a big achievement to get in (particularly for those of us who went to comprehensive schools back in the 1960/70s) and if you did go, it was straight off there, no luxury of a gap year and yes although we did get grants, students generally had a pretty frugal lifestyle. I didn’t know any students who had a car, went travelling, lots of nights out etc. A drink in the student union was about it!

I think a massive part of the problem is that university has become totally devalued with the expectation that half of young people will go, whether they have the aptitude or not. It’s raised expectations and given young people a load of debt. It’s bonkers!

I also agree with pp who’ve pointed out that previous generations had different challenges. Mortgage interest rates were routinely way higher than they’ve been for the last decade. Ok the 15% may have been short term (but it was fucking awful while it lasted) but it was absolutely the norm to have high rates. The only difference was we could get 100% mortgages so didn’t have to scrape for a deposit - which I agree is a massive problem now. But a 100% mortgage becomes a bloody great millstone when you go into negative equity as thousands of us did. The only way to get on the ladder was to get a 100% mortgage - and then when the crash happened, we were shafted.

Also, I’ve seen loads of time on MN women saying they couldn’t possibly leave their 3 month old baby in childcare to return to work…. Well hello, you would have done back in the day when that was the length of maternity leave and it was either that or lose the roof over your head. No option to just work 16 hours and get topped up with tax credits either!

and before anyone says ‘it’s not a race to the bottom’ - no it isn’t, but for everything that’s become harder for the younger generation now, there’s also something that’s a hell if a lot better.

It depends on your definition of harder. I had it hard growing up. My parents had it harder than me and remained poor their whole lives.

My DCs have had it infinitely easier than both of us. They’ve enjoyed an extremely privileged childhood with luxuries and holidays and experiences beyond anything I could have imagined at that age. They’ve had a hefty deposit from us for a house which has enabled them to buy in their twenties (something that never happened to my generation).

They have holidays, new fitted kitchens, new cars, nights out. We impressed on them the importance of paying into a pension since the day they started work, so they should have very decent pensions one day. Plus they’ll inherit a load when we pop off.

All while complaining how hard they have it.

It's what you need to have, as well. My father left school at 15 with no qualifications and worked his way up in one company to senior management. Good luck doing that these days. Good luck even getting employed with no qualifications.

Today, you need to be looking at a career job from the get go. Opportunities for in company advancement from starting at the very bottom are much lower. Being able to stay with the same company for most of your working life as my parents and grandparents did is becoming a thing of the past.

but it was absolutely the norm to have high rates.

But not with high house prices vs wages. A high % of a small amount isn’t much different to a low % of a large amount.

Re: higher education : far fewer people went to university back in the day.

Definitely, but far fewer employers expected degrees. When I started in my industry on the company grade scheme very few senior management had a degree. During my time there the graduate scheme changed to only accepting certain degrees from certain universities whereas mine degree was completely unrelated.

Also, I’ve seen loads of time on MN women saying they couldn’t possibly leave their 3 month old baby in childcare to return to work…. Well hello, you would have done back in the day when that was the length of maternity leave and it was either that or lose the roof over your head. No option to just work 16 hours and get topped up with tax credits either!

But more mothers with young dc work now & more full time now vs 30-40 years ago?

Less need for tax credits in the past due to different economic factors eg a single income could support a household, more social housing etc

Your kids are privileged because of what you have been able to do for them. That's different to general generational privilege.

You are right that huge sums of money for deposits were not routinely handed out to kids. But also, certainly in the 90s when I was doing all this, far more people were able to get on that ladder without needing that help.

That's the difference. Someone starting out today, as I was then, needs so much more than I did. It certainly isn't do-able on the equivalent income that I had at the time.

@ObelixtheGaul I agree that they have it tougher in terms of jobs and job security, but they seem to have this idea that we had it all.

When I was in my 20s I paid my rent or then mortgage once I bought, my bills, food and other essential costs like travel to work, and I had nothing left. They say “We’ve got to take a backwards step. We can’t afford to sustain the lifestyle we had as children” but they don’t see that it’s because they had such indulgent childhoods to begin with. They still have a better lifestyle in their 20s than I had in mine. I never went abroad until I was in my early thirties!

My DS was complaining that he couldn’t afford to buy a house like ours. No shit. Nor could we in our 20s. The first house I bought was a 2 bed ex council house, much crappier than his 3 bed new build. It took decades to get the detached house we’re in now. They seem to think that’s how we’ve lived our whole lives.

My husband was a student in the 80s. OK, he didn't have a car, but he certainly did a lot of drinking, and though he didn't have a gap year, he went travelling one of his summer holidays. He didn't need to work the summer, because alongside the full grant, he also claimed dole in the holidays. His parents didn't subsidise his life at poly at all, the government paid for the lot. He didn't even have to work in a bar or anything.

I had my first job at 16 and have worked since . I had the expectation of finishing work at 60 like everyone else growing up in the ‘80’s had.

The extra 7 years is a lot of extra years. I’m 50 and would happily retire tomorrow and I’m not sure I’m going to manage another 17 years, especially in my current role.

What happens to all those between 60-70 who do become too unwell to work? My mum had COPD and macular degeneration before she died at 73. She certainly wouldn’t have been able to work in the last ten years before she died.

I do understand that, and appreciate I may have rose tinted specs because I thought the one bed flat I lived in at 18 was a palace, even though it only had one economy 7 heater in one room, the bathroom was downstairs and the water went cold in the bath after 5 minutes (no shower). I had some of the best times of my life in that flat. Next door was the party flat. Had some great nights round there.

Our first house was a three-bed mid-terrace. We imagined the we'd have a family, so we bought a house we could grow into. I was 21. No parental help. OK, it wasn't London, but it wasn't the cheapest area in the country either, and yet I, a factory worker on a very low (not NMW, because that didn't exist) and my then fiance, on a bit more than me, but not much, were able to do that. We didn't have a lavish lifestyle, but I wouldn't say we had to stint. Of course, had the kids come it might have been different, but it was still a starting point that is totally beyond my nephew and his girlfriend.

All these years later, with no mortgage, I think about how much I owe to that start. That path I managed to get on so young, to be in a family sized house at that age. Most people today will be lucky to be on that ladder in their 30s.

We never got to have the family we planned, but if we had, yes it would have been harder, but we would still have owed a lot to that start. And my parents didn't have to put money into ISAs for me from my birth for me to have it, or, as I read an article on recently, take their own pensions out early as a lump sum to give to me for me to have it.

I still think I was lucky in comparison. I still marvel at how far so little went. Perhaps I didn't want much, since we didn't have flash cars and big TVs and all our furniture was second hand. So there is that. All these years on, despite the disappointment of not having a family of our own, to have paid off the mortgage feels like winning the lottery. By MN standards, I'm not successful, no high-flying six figure career for either of us. But I don't think many young people today without those big careers, even if they don't have children, which more and more are choosing to leave much later or not do at all, will be in my position in their early 50s without some heavy lifting from their parents.

I've been planning for myself and if I don't get the state pension it will be frustrating but I won't feel robbed because I understand that NI isnt being paid into a pension pot for me but pays for people at the time it is paid, and there is never a guarantee when it comes to successive governments and what they will do. I do think people need to be incentivised to have children