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?

I worked from 16 to 60 and then got my pension at 67. Even then I had to top up my NI conts as I hadn't enough years.
I would happily forgo the triple lock in it's current form. There are any number of cheaper alternatives and the very poorest can still get means tested pensions.

There needs to be a radical change but no government has the guts to tackle it in 4/5 years, it needs to be cross party. That's the only way to solve big things like pensions and the NHS.

Meanwhile, my DC in their 20s are paying into SIPPs.

No. The point was more whether it is a sensible investment on a national scale to support people having and raising children. Like a public investment in the future workforce.

Yeah course it is. Apparently we are selfish for paying into the system without career breaks.

Plus it will be at least 20 years before we would see the benefit so it’s fairly pointless for anyone over about 45

Wasn't me who said that.

Me.

I’ve been paying a large percentage into my pension all my working life. Currently 52. Plan to retire at 62.

But what about people who ‘can’t’ pay in? Presumably the rest of us would have to support them?

I like my job and I hope to carry on until I physically can't. I did a lot of faffing around and traveling in my 20s, ticked most things off my bucket list, and didn't get launched into my career till my mid thirties, so I want to keep going as long as I can.

The workhouse.

Exactly! I’m fed up reading “I paid for it!”

Even today, NI on an average salary is about £36 a week. Back when the boomers were starting work it would have been about 2 shillings a week. And yet they expect £200+ a week for decades and think their contributions have covered it.

31 and don’t expect one.

To be honest it’s madness. People perceive that they’ve paid in more than they have and expect the state to pay them back ten times over until they die. Politicians of every governing party are responsible for lots of the false expectations.

If we want to protect it in some form, we need to raise the age, bin the triple lock and tie it to the lower of wage increases/CPI, encourage working age immigration and spend money on measures that encourage people to have children. Good luck selling most of that to the British public.

I'm 52 and will get a state pension at 67. I think that I will be one of the last generations to get a state pension. I think I will still get a state pension because a) I have paid in all my qualifying stamp already b) but they will have moved the goalposts again (eg triple lock, possibly only from 70 by the time i get there). I am actually ok with that, so long as there are jobs for us to do! I think the system will get a radical overhaul along with other aspects of social care, but it will take them a long time because of all the implications. One of the things they could look at is level of stamp you've paid - I have already paid in enough to get full state so I am "in credit" so to speak, and I wonder if they will support net contributors to receive their fair share, or just rob us to make sure there's some provision for sick and long term unemployed.

I’m not planning on having a state pension. I’ll cover all my own costs.

I'm 35 and try not to think about it. I'm a carer for my disabled child so can't work.

It is perfectly fine. Perhaps because I’m Gen X, I came to realise early on the days of the government paying for everything was over. In my lifetime I’ve only just missed out on, full student grants, being able to claim unemployment benefits as a student / graduate, (despite having paid tax and NI from the age of 16) MIRAS, married couples tax allowance, SERPS, and now face not being able to get the state pension until I’m 68. I also expect we will see a break in the hold pensioners have on government budgets. They will lose the golden protected status, the triple lock will go, and over time the state pension will devalue just as other benefits have.

Do I wish we still had all those things? Probably. But we can’t afford it and no amount of whining will change it. We are the generation who raised ourselves, none of this is surprising nor worth complaining about.

that is exactly the age it will start benefitting you though...

There needs to be a radical change but no government has the guts to tackle it in 4/5 years, it needs to be cross party. That's the only way to solve big things like pensions and the NHS

Absolutely agree that we need cross party solutions but I think so much of the electorate still want the quick fixes.

It doesn’t necessarily follow - many people don’t need care and if they do they have to pay anyway.

The issue with saying people should have more children is that it costs the current workforce to support education, healthcare etc for those children and mothers. And say the child grows up and doesn’t work or whatever…

i agree with a PP - it should be an option to have your life ended painlessly.

People need to stop thinking about what they are going to leave to their kids whilst taking state pensions and state provided care.
We are all going to need to be more self sufficient.
It's daft to me that older people want the government to pay for their old age but also want to leave a load of assets to their children!

They should, rightly, be supported by the state. That’s what pension credit is for.

The vast majority of children do not grow up not to work.

Not necessarily, I would be 75 and much as I am hoping to still be working then,its not a given. Plus, given that so many people are encouraged to go to uni (whether or not they are suitable), that could be nearer 25-30 years

Well in that case they should be paying our pensions like we pay for today’s pensioners.

You hope to still be working at 75, but you don't think you will need state support after that (that someone, not you, needs to pay for)?

Oh I know. I have a relative on it. She hasn’t had a job in 55 years but she gets more than if she had