What is the point of paying NI for 35 years to get a full State Pension, when people who have never worked receive Pension Credit anyway?

[Blondiebeachbabe]

I just cannot get my head around this. You have to pay National Insurance for 35 years, in order to receive a State Pension of £241 per week. However, if you have never worked (like my cousin), you will receive Pension Credit of £238 per week. So basically, having contributed for 35 years, means that you get an extra £3 a week. Woop de fucking doo.

Moreover, why did some people who didn't have the full 35 years, pay extra to top themselves up, when Pension Credit would have bumped them up to £238 anyway?

Not only this, but people on Pension Credit have access to things that people receiving the SP do not, such as :

Housing Benefit: Often covers 100% of your rent.
Council Tax: You may pay nothing at all.
Heating: Free Winter Fuel Payments and Warm Home Discounts.
Health: Free dental treatment and eye tests.
TV Licence: Free for those aged 75 or over.

Make it make sense!

She’s not wrong though. There will be lots of people whose situation isn’t the same, and of course they’ll have made and enjoyed different choices.

However if you have worked at a low paid job your whole life, just about got by, paid your credits, topped up any periods where you didn’t, then at the end of it you have nothing more to show for it than someone who hasn’t worked.

I used to work in benefits. Most PC claimants had worked at some point but might not have reached the amount for full state pension - for all sorts of reasons eg ill health, disability, caring responsibilities, poor life circumstances. I am not sure op why you are so envious of someone who has spent their life on benefits? Do you honestly think it's an enviable life? And would you like to see pensioners starving if they haven't reached full state pension?

As others have said, you only get £238 Pension Credit if you have no other income and if you don't have savings over £10k.

Most people don’t feel like mugs. I couldn’t care less. Pension policy isn’t about appeasing bitter people who can’t bear the fact that someone who hasn’t worked ad many years as them for whatever reason isn’t starving in the gutter.

It's not so much about them getting the same amount, but why do they get extra benefits? If you're poor enough to need those extras on pension credit then an extra few quid a week on an actual pension isn't going to suddenly make you well off enough not to need them is it?

I understand your frustration OP.
My DM gets a state pension and pension credit. She did work, but didn't pay enough NI contributions and had to stop working before retirement age because of ill health (arthritis).
She divorced 36 years ago, and could never afford to buy a property on her wages.
She lives in a 3 bedroomed council house with an assured tenancy, has no deductions for under occupying (bedroom tax), and since she is on MRC/HRM of DLA, she gets almost £500 per week excluding her rent, despite having over £16K in savings.

Otoh, my DMIL worked her whole life, paid into a private pension, bought a small property and in her twilight years, found with her small private pension and her SP, she couldn't afford the upkeep of her property so did as many of the jobs that needed doing herself and scrimped and scraped to afford the jobs she couldn't do.
None of it mattered in the end, because she ended up in a care home and her home was sold to pay for the care home costs.

It saddens me that she did everything she was advised to do and ended up in such a poor position, but thems the rules.

It's just generic benefits bashing.

There's probably nothing anyone can say if you want to feel bitter about this stuff.

Take care where you get your info from, read the real stats (very few people never work unless they have mental or physical health issues, the normal pattern is work, lose job, work, lose job - range of causes, some on the employer side some on the employee side).

The free dental treatment you talk of - minimal. The housing - precarious for most.

If you genuinely feel jealous of that life, you could give it a go.

But it only became mandatory for employers to pay pensions in 2010, so there must be loads of older people who have no private pension

Todays pensioners generally have better private schemes as there were far more DB schemes in the private sector and public sector pensions were more generous

If you qualify for the guarantee credit part of pension credit, then you get passported eligibility, meaning you are entitled to the maximum amount of housing benefit if you rent and the savings limit, which is usually £16k, is completely ignored.

Making the gap bigger I guess. So people who have actually paid in don't feel like mugs.

An average earner with a normal life expectancy won’t have paid enough for their state pension.

What about higher earners or those without dc?

should state pensions be linked to how much tax you have paid in like other countries?

I don't feel like a mug. We've worked and we own a home, children with good education and prospects, private pensions etc. Oh wait, should we have just not bothered living a nice life so we could get a shitty £238 a week when we're old?

Surely the idea is most people who have worked all their lives will have built up some assets and therefore not living on £241 a week

Previously, we did have earnings related state pensions, i.e. graduated pensions of the 70s?, then SERPS in the 80s and S2P in the 90s. On the grounds of "simplification", it was all dismantled and we're now left with a basic amount for everyone again. What a monumental waste of governmental time and money when they changed the system so many times!

Well, the bottom line is the UK is stuffed if it doesn't reduce it's benefits and pension payments. You can all oppose it and vote in more pathetic MPs who pander to the public with payouts, ruining our children's futures, or you can accept that things must change.

The triple lock absolutely needs to go

The purpose of the State Pension is to provide the elderly with a 'bare minimum' income once they are too old to work. The purpose of Pension Credit is the same.

Reaching 66 with no savings, no alternative income, and no property is not something to be proud of, even if you did 'contribute all your life' (you had no choice, and you cost more than you repaid). It means you have failed to adequately prepare for your retirement, and now the state must support you.

So why should there be any difference in the level of support given to people who didn't prepare for retirement, whether or not they worked during their life? It costs the same to feed and clothe and heat a Pension Credit recipient as it does a State Pension recipient.

I've just researched the average rent per month for a pensioner and it's approx. £1100 per month for a one bedroom dwelling - obviously this is a rough average. Add in council tax £1300 to £1900 per year and then all the other benefits and it amounts to approx £15k per annum. That's just the benefits, then add on the actual state pension approx £12k for a single person, or just under £19k for a couple. So £27k in total for a single person and £34k for a couple per annum if you're on pension credit.

Goodness, I've just made myself really depressed researching that. Bearing in mind that you pay tax on any extra income over £12.570 per annum if you're not on pension credit and liable for full council tax as well, it does make you wonder about the wisdom of being self sufficient. It's all getting ridiculous now.

Work should always benefit you - young and old - but it's beginning to seem that it's not necessarily the case. However what work does give you is self respect, autonomy and assets that you can pass onto your children. So regardless, I'm glad I worked from the age of 17 to 61. I enjoyed my various careers and engaging with the wider world. Also proud to be a role model to my daughter, who is also hardworking.

I don't know how things can be changed, but in my opinion there does need to be some adjustment to make it fairer to working people and people with occupational pension income. Maybe a substantial raise in the personal allowance would partly ameliorate the unfairness. But I can't see it happening any time soon, unfortunately.

Don't worry, when we have to go gap in hand to the IMF for emergency loans, they'll impose spending reductions on the UK as part of their support plan, then the government of the day will have no choice but to cut spending and they'll be able to blame the IMF for making them do it!

DH was 56 when he died, he was employed right up until the day he died. He, and many others like him, won't see a single penny of their state pensions. I will qualify for full state pension when retirement comes around but I cannot get in a stew about those who have never worked and can claim pension credit.

Self worth, contributing to society, setting a good example to ones children, meeting people, contributing to the economy, using ones brain.

This is the bit I don't understand, my neighbour who has worked but I think was self employed, gets a few pounds PC per month, they told me this recently complaining about how little it was. Later I realised that because of that they get their rent and council tax paid plus free tv license and other advantages. By the time I've paid my full council tax, tv licence etc it totally cancels out my small private pension which I get on top of the full state pension, so I'm no better off for paying thousands out of my wages into that pension🤷

People are allowed to discuss benefits without the 'Oh another benefits rage bait thread' being rolled out every time.

Many people work all of their lives and don't have a private pension like my Mother. 72 and still working FT in a NMW job as a carer, not entitled to pension credit though.

This

But these threads are not really discussions are they? They are all based on x has this and I don’t and it’s not fair..and I have worked really hard all my life..
coupled with a large helping of faux naïveté where op can’t get their head around something or wonders if it’s really true that an income on benefits is the same as someone who earns £100k a year.

Because people who worked and receive state pension will probably also have a modest private pension to top it up.

You don’t though, not any more. There is almost no difference between working and not working unless you earn over £200k.